‘No-one expected the war to go on for this long’: a shelter in Budapest helps Ukrainian refugees

‘No-one expected the war to go on for this long,’ Ákos Surányi, head of staff, Menedékház (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

Amber Jackson from the diocese communications team in the Diocese in Europe and Patrick Comerford from USPG are visiting Anglican chaplaincies in Hungary and Finland to see how they are supporting Ukrainian refugees with funding from the joint Ukraine appeal.

Patrick Comerford visits a centre for homeless people in Budapest that has provided shelter for Ukrainian refugees

Ever since the Russians invaded Ukraine a year ago, refugees have been pouring across the borders of Hungary and other neighbouring countries, seeking shelter and compassion.

The Menedékház Foundation, on the outskirts of Budapest, was in a strong position to deal with the crisis from the very beginning.

Menedékház is a refuge or home for homeless families with children, and for the past 12 years it has been housed in a former army barracks half an hour from the centre of the Hungarian capital.

The head of staff, Ákos Surányi, who showed us around the facilities, says Menedékház was expecting a large number of refugee families and children when the war began, and it was well-placed to deal with the crisis as it began to unfold.

Ákos explains how the foundation has been responding for years to the needs of elderly and disabled people and families who lose their family homes and of homeless people on the streets of Budapest.

Within weeks of the war breaking out last year, Menedékház was coping with the first wave of refugees from Eastern Ukraine. They included both ethnic Ukrainians and Russian-speaking refugees from places like Donbas and Donetsk.

Doctors, nurses, teachers and other professionals volunteered their expertise, and local people donated hampers and food. Grants came from the Bishop’s Refugee Appeal in the Diocese in Europe and USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), through the efforts of the Revd Dr Frank Hegedus, the priest and chaplain at Saint Margaret’s Anglican Church in Budapest.

Russian-speakers and Ukrainians came together in sharing their compassion for each other, understanding they were all victims of the war.

About 20 families found shelter and accommodation with Menedékház before many of the people in this first group of refugees were able to move on to other countries like Germany, Italy and the UK.

By May, a second group of up to 150 refugees from western Ukraine were being helped by the foundation.

‘No-one expected the war to go on for this long,’ Ákos says. ‘All refugees want to move on, and there are no refugees here now,’ he explains. But they are ready to take more refugee families again.

His optimism is admirable. As he explains, Menedékház is facing imminent closure. The war has also brought spiraling fuel costs and rapidly rising gas, insurance and electricity bills. The war has also played havoc with Hungary’s inflation, and the foundation is facing increasing rent demands and bills that have increased eight-fold.

Despite its success in coping with refugees from Ukraine over the past year, he predicts Menedékház is facing a major financial crisis within weeks, possibly by March. In the face of this uncertainty and possible closure, the centre continues its projects with homeless families and disabled people and with marginalised teenage boys from deprived areas in inner city Budapest.

‘As long as Menedékház continues its work, it has the support of Saint Margaret’s,’ Father Frank says with hope.

(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is a former Trustee of USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) and blogs at www.patrickcomerford.com

Hope springs eternal … a wall painting in the shelter at Menedékház Foundation, Budapest (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Praying through poems and with USPG: 7 January 2023

‘Clap quickly your wings, be elated, / Keep swishing, you’re fondly awaited’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Christmas is not a season of 12 days, despite the popular Christmas song. Christmas is a 40-day season that lasts from Christmas Day (25 December) to Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February).

Throughout the 40 days of this Christmas Season, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, Reflecting on a seasonal or appropriate poem;

2, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’

oday is Christmas Day in the Calendar of the Ukrainian Orthodox calendar. I arrived in Budapest late on Thursday night and Charlotte and I are spending some days visiting Saint Margaret’s Anglican Church and Father Frank Hegedus with the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) and the Diocese in Europe to see how the church and church agencies in Hungary are working with refugees from Ukraine.

TMy choice of a seasonal poem this morning is ‘Angel From Heaven’ by Sándor Márai (1900-1989). This is the name of one of the most popular Christmas carols in Hungary and Márai’s poem of the same name was written just after the 1956 revolution, and one of the most popular poems about the 1956 revolution.

After the revolution was crushed by Soviet troops, 200,000 Hungarians fled to the West; those who stayed behind faced arrest or worse, and hundreds were executed. Márai, like many others, was outraged by the brutality of the Soviets, and the inaction of the West.

In its sentimentality, his poem ‘Angel From Heaven’ is not typical of Márai’s work. It is more emotional than most of his poems, and more emotional than much of his writing about World War II.

Sándor Márai was born in 1900 in the Austro-Hungarian town of Kassa, now Košice, the largest city in east Slovakia.

Márai published his first story when he was 15, and he was still a teenager when he experienced world war, epidemic, revolution and exile. He lived in Paris and Berlin and was in Budapest during World War II. When the Communists came to power in 1948, he went into exile in New York. His love for Magyar, the Hungarian language, never wavered, despite his fluency in German..

He reflects on the siege of Budapest in 1944, when the Russians and Germans fought over the capital and 35,000 civilians died, in his Book of Verses.

In his writing he chides his fellow Hungarian for not resisting the Nazis more forcefully, but he also borders on antisemitism when he deplores those Jews he sees as working as thugs for the Communists.

Funeral Oration is considered Márai’s poetic masterpiece. His appropriation of the earliest literary text in Hungarian, dating from the 12th century, is Márai’s attempt to underpin the place of Hungarian literature. He cites his country’s great creative figures, including the composer Bartók, the painter Rippl-Rónai, and the writers Arany, Babits and Krúdy.

Márai died by suicide in San Diego at the age of 88 on 22 February 1989. His ashes were scattered in the Pacific.

‘Angel from Heaven, do rush, don’t rest, / Hurry to smouldering Budapest’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Angel from heaven (translated by Leslie A Kery)

Angel from Heaven, do rush, don’t rest,
Hurry to smouldering Budapest.
Go to where, among the Russian tanks,
The silent bells give no sound of thanks.
Where there’s no Christmas sparkle to please,
Where nuts painted gold don't hang on trees,
There’s nothing but hunger, shivers, cold,
Do speak so they will grasp what you told.
Split with your voice the night asunder:
Angel, carry news of the wonder:

Clap quickly your wings, be elated,
Keep swishing, you’re fondly awaited.
Don’t speak of the world from whence you came,
Where candles are burning, bright the flame,
Tables are spread, the houses have heat,
Priests with their fine words console, entreat,
Crinkling of paper, gifts given, sent,
Wise words to ponder, clever intent.
Sparklers are sparkling upon the trees:
Angel, do speak of the wonder please!

This is world wonder, relate, explain:
A poor people’s tree had burst into flame;
A Christmas tree in the Silent Night,
And many cross themselves at the sight.
It’s watched by the folk of continents,
Some grasp it, for some it makes no sense.
Far too much for some to hold at bay.
They’re shaking their heads, they shudder, pray,
For those aren’t sweets that hang on the tree:
’Tis Christ of the people: Hungary.

And many pass by and some advance:
The soldier, who pierced him with a lance,
The Pharisee, who sold him for a price,
Then one, who when asked, denied him thrice,
One, whose hand had shared the bowl with Him,
Who for silver coins had offered Him,
And whilst abusing, wielded the lash,
Had drank his blood and he ate his flesh –
The crowd is standing around, they stare,
But to address Him there’s none to dare.
Silent victim, no accusal tried,
Just watches like Christ did crucified.
Strange tree of Christmas, who brought this tree,
Devil or Angel, who could it be,
Those, who for his robe are tossing dice,
Know not what they do, know not the price,
Just sniff and yelp, want to bring to light
The mystery, the secret of this night,
Strange is this Christmas, strange things are these:
The Magyar Nation hangs on the trees.

The world talks wonder, to that they’re glued,
Priests drone of gumption and fortitude.
Statesmen produce farewell addresses,
His Holiness then duly blesses.
All kinds of people, all ranks – a sea –,
Question why all of this had to be.
Not perished as asked – can’t comprehend.
Why not in silence await the end?
Why had the skies turned from fair to rough?
Because a people had cried ‘Enough!’

Many can’t grasp it, though they had tried,
What rose up here like an ocean tide?
Why was world order shaking and strained?
A nation cried out. Then silence reigned.
Many are asking: what was the cause?
Who made from bones and the flesh the laws?
More and more ask it, there seems no end
Haltingly, for they can’t comprehend –
Those, for whom Freedom bequest had brought,
Ask it: is Freedom so great a thought?

Angel, bring down the word from the skies:
New life from blood will always arise.
Quite a few times and even some more,
Child met donkey and shepherd before,
If by the manger, on littered earth,
One life had given another birth,
‘Tis they who’ll mind that wonder and will
Stand with breath bated as sentry still,
For bright the star is, dawn breaks as well:
Angel from heaven … tell them, do tell.

‘For bright the star is, dawn breaks as well: / Angel from heaven … tell them, do tell’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

USPG Prayer Diary:

The theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week is ‘Refugee Response in Finland.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Revd Tuomas Mäkipää, Chaplain at Saint Nicholas’ Anglican Church in Helsinki, who tells how a USPG grant is helping to support Ukrainian refugees.

The USPG Prayer Diary invites us to pray today in these words:

Let us give thanks for Saint Nicholas’ Chaplaincy and its work with refugees. May our support for those displaced by war never grow weary.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

‘One … Who for silver coins had offered Him’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In search of Leopold Bloom’s Jewish family in Szombathely in western Hungary

The Moorish-style Neolog Synagogue in Szombathely was designed by Ludwig Schöne and built in 1880 (Photograph: Wikipedia/CCL)

Patrick Comerford

The centenary of the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses was celebrated in Hungary, with the Irish Embassy in Budapest organising a literary evening and a Bloomsday programme last year in Szombathely, the town in western Hungary where James Joyce places the birth of Leopold Bloom’s father, Rudolph Bloom.

The Bloomsday programme in Szombathely included public art depicting scenes from Ulysses. The organisers were Ferenc Kassai and Szabolcs Prieger, the Hungarian translator of Ulysses Dr Marianna Gula, and Professor Michael McAteer, lecturer on Irish literature at Pázmány Péter Catholic University (PPCU) Budapest.

Joyce visited neither Budapest nor Szombathely. But, because he places birth of Rudolph Bloom in Szombathely, the city has become the focus of Joycean celebrations in Hungary.

Of course, critics debate and doubt Bloom’s Jewishness. His mother, Ellen Higgins, was a gentile, and his father converted in order to marry her. Leopold, who was neither circumcised nor had a bar mitzvah, was baptised in the Church of Ireland and became a Catholic to marry Molly. He flouts the Jewish dietary laws, and proclaims himself an atheist.

Yet his protagonists see Bloom as Jewish and in Bloom James Joyce has created the literature’s archetypal Irish Jew. He is presented as the only descendant of a Hungarian Jewish family, whose father, Rudolf Virág emigrates from Szombathely through Budapest, Vienna, Milan and London to Dublin. Rudolf is the son of Lipóti Virag, but in Dublin he changes his name to Rudolph Bloom, virágbeing the Hungarian word for flower and also a family name in Hungary.

There are endless debates about Joyce’s choice of Szombathely. For over a decade, he taught English in Pula and then in Trieste, but he never visited Szombathely.

Research lead primarily by Róbert Orbán shows that a prosperous Jewish family named Blum lived in the main square in the city at Fő tér 40-41 in the mid-19th century. In this way, literary fiction has been transformed into urban myth, with a memorial plaque on the Blum-House.

Szombathely once had a relatively large Jewish population, and Joyce may have heard about some of those families while mixing in Hungarian circles in Trieste, then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Joyce was a genius at word play. The pronunciation of Szombathely (Sombattay) sounds like ‘somebody,’ and so it might have been a light-hearted play on words.

Another theory suggests Joyce chose the name from a Jewish friend in Trieste, the scholar Marino de Szombathely, who translated Homer’s Ulysses from Greek into Italian at a time when Joyce was writing Ulysses. They got to know each other while Joyce was in self-imposed exile in Trieste.

Today, Szombathely is the tenth largest city in Hungary, but has only 40 Jewish residents. Rudolph Bloom is celebrated in the city with a plaque on the Blum family’s former home. A bronze statue of Joyce was erected in the city in 2004, and for almost 30 years Bloomsday has been an important cultural event in the town on 16 June each year.

Szombathely is known for the Iseum, the classical temple of Isis, and as the birthplace of Saint Martin, Bishop of Tours. Jews were not allowed to live within the city limits until 1840, although they could own businesses there.

The Jewish population of Szombathely grew rapidly after the emancipation of Hungary’s Jews in 1840. On 4 April 1848, the Jewish community was attacked and the synagogue was destroyed. The city authorities, who supported the attackers, tried to expel the Jews from the city, but the central authorities intervened and stopped them.

The community split in 1871, and a separate Orthodox community was established. However, the two communities lived in harmony, and it was a vibrant community, with all the institutions typical of a Jewish community. The beautiful Moorish-style synagogue on Bathhyany Square, with Oriental and Romantic features, was designed by Ludwig Schöne and built in 1880. It has two large, dome-topped towers and a lavishly decorated exterior.

After World War I, the Jews of Szombathely were accused of supporting Austrian annexation of the town in 1919, and some Jews were killed in pogroms caused by this accusation.

After the outbreak of World War II, about 3,400 Jews lived there in 1941, making up almost 10% of the population. The Jews of the city were inducted into labour battalions, starting in 1942. The German occupation of Hungary began on 19 March 1944. A group of six Germans, led by a Gestapo officer, Scharführer Heinz von Arndt, immediately set about enforcing measures against Szombathely’s Jewish community with speed and with ferocity.

Arndt demanded a large ransom from the city’s Jewish committees. Although payment was made, it did not offer protection to the Jews of Szombathely. A ghetto was formed on 6 May to hold the Jews of Szombathely and the surrounding areas.

The official count shows 3,609 Jews were held in the ghetto in Szombathely. There was over-crowding and chronic shortages. The Mayor of Szombathely ignored all requests for assistance from the head of the Jewish Council. A decree on 1 June sealed off the ghetto from the rest of Szombathely. People seeking food or other provisions were banned from leaving the ghetto, and the living conditions of the thousands of Jews trapped there grew increasingly dire by the day.

In the final action before deportation to the concentration camps, people were moved from the ghetto to the Hungarian Motor and Machine Works in the closing days of June.

Beginning on 4 July and continuing for the next three days, trains from Szombathely were packed with Jews. The deportations were organised with deadly efficiency, and 4,228 Jews were deported from Szombathely to Auschwitz. To add insult to injury, all were forced to pay for their own train tickets.

Within a month and a half, the ghetto was cleared, the Motor and Machine Works was empty, and Jewish homes and possessions in Szombathely had been confiscated, looted and either taken away or given to other residents.

A thriving Jewish life and culture was almost entirely extinguished within a few months. Their last memory is the symbolic gate to the ghetto, built into the wall of a modern building on the site.

After the war, about 250-400 survivors trickled back into Szombathely. Most of them had little interest staying in a place where everything had been taken from them. They moved away and the beautiful Neolog Synagogue was transformed into a concert hall. A Holocaust memorial stands next to it.

A small museum on the history of the Jews in Szombathely and a visitor centre opened ten years ago in 2013. The Jewish community maintains a small prayer house and a cultural centre next door.

It is worth remembering this Jewish community that is so closely identified with the best-known Jewish figure in Irish literature. But it is even more important not to forget their sufferings and near-annihilation during the Holocaust.

Shabbat Shalom

A family named Blum lived at Fő tér 40-41 in the main square in Szombathely in the mid-19th century (Photograph: Wikipedia/CCL)