Szombathely, Hungary
Szombathely is the administrative centre of Vas county in western Hungary, located near the border with Austria. It is the oldest recorded city in Hungary and the 10th largest city.
It is easily accessible from Budapest (221 km), Vienna (135 km), and Bratislava (165 km).
The name Szombathely is from Hungarian “szombat” Saturday, and “hely" place", referring to its status as a market town; the medieval markets were held on Saturdays.
The German name, Steinamanger, means "stone on the green" (Stein am Anger). The name was coined by German settlers who encountered the ruins of the Roman city of Savaria (Szombathely). On the map below, you can also see Szt. Márton, one of the communities where Jews settled when they were not allowed to live in Szombathely.
Szombathely is also located along the "Amber Road" (map below). We don't exactly know when it was established, but findings from prehistoric times prove that trade along this corridor existed long before Roman times.
Sections of the Roman “Amber Road” can still be seen in Szombathely.
The first organized Jewish community was established in 1788. A railway line reached the city in 1865, and in the 1870s, Szombathely became a major railway junction. In 1885, the city annexed the nearby villages of Ó-Perint and Szt. Márton, thereby increasing its area.
A history of several Jewish communities of Vas county is available from a Yizkor Book on JewishGen. It is a translation from A Vasi zsidók emlékére a mártirhalált szenvedett vasmegyei zsidóságnak; Memorial book of Vas County. The project coordinator and one of the translators is Judy Petersen.
Susan Geroe provided the English translation for Szombathely. According to this text, “The Szombathely community was established as an independent organization in 1830.”
During World War II, as with many other towns in the region, Szombathely was strategic due to the railway junction, marshalling yards, local aerodrome, and barracks. The town formed part of the logistical military infrastructure supporting Axis forces. In 1944 and 1945, the town and locality were bombed by day on several occasions by aircraft of the US 15th Air Force; at night, bombing runs were made by aircraft from the Royal Air Force 205 Group. These aircraft operated from bases in Italy.
On 28 March 1945, the 6th SS Panzer and 6th Armies were pushed back by an assault from the east across the Raba River by the 46th and 26th Armies of the USSR and the 3rd Ukrainian Front. Soviet forces took control of Szombathely on 29 March 1945.
Szemtöl - Szemben
Eye to eye
[The following text is quoted from the exhibit’s website]
“It is impossible but necessary, and therefore possible in spite of all (that is, incompletely).”
Georges Didi-Huberman wrote this in his book on whether the Holocaust can be explained, written about, and understood. This paradoxical aphorism condenses the ‘inexpressible yet expressible’ horrors of the Holocaust. It is impossible to understand and portray what happened, yet one must because it demands an answer. In the first days of July 1944, nearly 3,000 Jewish citizens of Szombathely were crammed into cattle cars and sent towards Auschwitz.
In the summer of 1945, scarcely more than 300 people returned from the death camps. Nearly three thousand; scarcely three hundred. These are fates shrouded in approximate numbers, mere names that are unable to raise awareness of and clearly express the loss.
The exhibition ‘Eye to Eye’ is intended to provide possible answers to these two dilemmas.
Inspired by both the necessity to tell and to personalize the everyday lives of those who lived there, it builds on the history of Szombathely’s Jewish community during the 19th and 20th centuries and attempts to render tangible the void left behind by the ravages of the Holocaust.
Using the rich, emotional realm of photography and the multi-layered content of personal accounts, it relates the dramatic devastation wrought by the Holocaust.
The objectives of the exhibition are comprehension, representation, and remembrance. Its method is to bring textual and visual representations into dialog. Its agents are the people who appear with their own gestures and movements, speaking in their own voices.
Focussing on personal fates and human experiences, the exhibition presents the history of the 3,200 strong Jewish community through 957 archive photographs, 40 themes, and the faces of 439 people, depicting the lives of individuals, families, groups, their community’s material and spiritual culture, religion, traditions, society and history, as well as its destruction in the Holocaust and its regeneration afterwards.
By doing so, it provides an insight into a part of Szombathely’s history that has remained hidden until now. At the same time, it allows one to see the everyday history of Jews living outside the capital cities in Hungary and Central Europe through the prism of a specific community.
The recurring motif of the star-shaped mirror allows us to face and reflect on history and individual human fate. Moreover, it prompts one to embark on an inner journey. In the words of Hermann Hesse:
“Each man’s life represents a road toward himself, an attempt at such a road, the intimation of a path.”
By posing questions about stigma, empathy, responsibility, and many other issues, a journey together through real and symbolic space might bring us closer to understanding our own personality, and also help in understanding history.
The venue of the exhibition was formerly the upstairs classrooms of the Neolog Jewish Primary School from 1893 to 1944. For more than fifty years, from generation to generation, hundreds of Jewish students began their studies and lives within these walls.
Legalized violence just before deportation turned it into a place of humiliation and brutality, events that left an indelible mark in the memories of the survivors.
Seven decades of silence have remained in this building’s past until the protagonists of the history of Szombathely’s Jewish community returned to tell their story in pictures and words.
This exhibition is supported by Szombathely City; the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities (MAZSIHISZ), Savaria County Municipal Museum and the Jewish Community of Szombathely.
Special thanks to the team of creation:
Curator: Krisztina Kelbert
English translation: Róbert Balogh
Photo: Nóra Dénes
Graphic design: Ferenc Kassai
Why select Szombathely?
Records indicate that my Günsberger ancestors settled near the Vas County administrative center of Szombathely.
As I was researching records of the Jewish community of Szombathely, I came across some information about the exhibit. An initial contact with the exhibit’s researcher and organizer, Krisztina Kelbert, resulted in the photograph below of Olga Günsberger. I had an Olga in my family tree, and I jumped to an ecstatic conclusion: this was my Olga. (I was wrong, but the Günsberger name indicates a potential relationship. More breadcrumbs to follow.)
This was the beginning of my fascination with the exhibit, the way it didn’t show numbers, but depicted real people’s lives.
There followed more communication, an order for the book of the exhibit, and eventually, my grandson’s visit to Szombathely, where he met Krisztina and other amazingly helpful officials.
Thank you.