Die Geschichte von Pestújhely Synagogue (Neptun utca), Budapest
Pestújhely is a residential quarter on the north-eastern edge of Budapest. According to the English Wikipedia article on the quarter, the area was uninhabited until the second half of the nineteenth century; building plots were sold at auction in 1897, the new settlement became independent of Rákospalota in 1909, and in 1950 it was joined to Greater Budapest together with Rákospalota. It now lies in the 15th district, and Neptun utca runs through it towards Újpalota.
The only record of a synagogue here found in this research is the gazetteer of Hungarian synagogues compiled by Anikó Gazda from a site survey of 1980-87. Gazda's survey records 388 Jews in Pestújhely in 1910 and lists two buildings: a prayer house of 1910 in Adria utca, in the house of Lázár Pereszlényi, and a synagogue of 1927 in Neptun utca. Both are marked as demolished. Gazda rated the accuracy of her data at 80 to 90 per cent. A photograph in the Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives catalogued as the Pestújhely memorial shows that a Jewish community existed in the quarter, but it says nothing about the synagogue. No description, photograph, plan or exact house number for the building has been found. The neighbouring Rákospalota synagogue, also completed in 1927, still stands and is listed separately by Gazda.
Where it stood for 60 years
Historic: Neptun utca, Pestújhely (independent municipality 1909-1950); house number unknown. Today: Neptun utca, 1158 Budapest, XV. kerület (Pestújhely); pin is on the street, approximate.
Größere Karte öffnen →Die jüdische Gemeinde
Very little about the Jews of Pestújhely was found in the sources read. The quarter was a new suburban settlement: plots were auctioned from 1897, and it was a separate municipality from 1909 until 1950, so any Jewish congregation there was young. Gazda's survey of 1980-87 records 388 Jews in Pestújhely in 1910, and no figures for 1828, 1851 or 1941. Their first known place of worship was a prayer house opened in 1910 in Adria utca, in the house of Lázár Pereszlényi; the synagogue in Neptun utca followed in 1927. Whether Pestújhely had its own independent congregation, or a prayer-house association attached to the community of Rákospalota or to the Pest community, is unknown. The Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives holds a black-and-white photograph, catalogued as F14.159 with the title 'Pestújhelyi emlékmű', showing a Jewish memorial in the quarter. The names of rabbis, cantors or community officers are unknown.
Architektur und Gestaltung
Nothing about the building's appearance has been found. No photograph, postcard, drawing or plan of a synagogue in Neptun utca, Pestújhely, turned up in the collections searched, which included the Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives catalogue under the names Pestújhely, Pestujhely and Neptun. Gazda's survey classes the building as a synagogue rather than a prayer room in a house, and dates it to 1927, which would make it one of the late synagogues built in the suburbs around Budapest between the two world wars. Its architect, builder, size, seating capacity, style and the arrangement of its interior are unknown. It is not known whether it was a free-standing building or part of a larger plot with a school or community rooms. The house number in Neptun utca is also unknown, so the building cannot be matched with old cadastral maps or building permits without further archive work in the Budapest City Archives.
Leben in der Synagoge
No account of worship or communal life in the Pestújhely synagogue has been found. The rite followed by the congregation, whether Neolog (Congress), Orthodox or Status Quo, is unknown, as are the names of any rabbi, cantor, teacher or lay leader who served it. It is not known whether the community kept a school, a burial society or other associations, or whether its dead were buried in the Rákospalota Jewish cemetery or elsewhere. Because the building is dated to 1927, it can have served its congregation for at most about seventeen years before the persecutions of 1944. Local newspapers of Pestújhely and Rákospalota from the interwar years, the files of the Pest Jewish community in the Hungarian Jewish Archives, and the April 1944 community data sheets are the most likely places to find this information, but none of them were read for this entry.
Zerstörung
When and how the synagogue was destroyed is not known. Gazda's survey of 1980-87 records the building in Neptun utca as demolished, and that is the only evidence found of its loss. No source read records damage to it in 1944 or during the siege of Budapest in the winter of 1944-45, and no source shows it still standing after 1945, so it cannot be said whether it was wrecked during the war, stood empty and was pulled down under Communist rule after Pestújhely was joined to Budapest in 1950, or was sold and demolished by a private owner. Who looted or demolished the building is not recorded in any source consulted. Because the date of demolition cannot be narrowed down, it is given here only as before the end of Gazda's survey in 1987.
Das Schicksal der Gemeinde
The fate of the Jews of Pestújhely in 1944 could not be documented from the sources read. Pestújhely was then a separate municipality outside the Budapest city boundary, but the place where its Jews were concentrated, the date of their deportation and the number of victims are unknown here; Randolph Braham's study of the Holocaust in Hungary, which lists the ghettos and entrainment centres of the region, was not consulted. Gazda gives no Jewish population figure for Pestújhely in 1941. A memorial in Pestújhely was photographed for the Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives, which suggests that local Jews were murdered and that their memory was marked in the quarter, but the catalogue record does not say when the memorial was set up or whom it names. Whether any organised Jewish community re-formed in Pestújhely after 1945 is unknown.
Der Ort heute
The site of the synagogue has not been identified, because no house number in Neptun utca is recorded in the sources read. Neptun utca today is a long residential street in the 1158 postal district of Budapest's 15th district, running from Pestújhely towards Újpalota and lined mainly with family houses and some later buildings, including a school at number 57. Without the plot number it is not possible to say what now occupies the site or whether any trace of the building survives. The map pin for this entry marks the Pestújhely section of Neptun utca and should not be read as the exact location. A post-war memorial in Pestújhely is known from a photograph in the Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives.
Haben Sie etwas beizutragen?
Fotos, Dokumente, Familiengeschichten oder Erinnerungen an diese Synagoge und ihre Gemeinde halten ihre Geschichte lebendig.
Share a memory or thought
No comments yet. Be the first to add one.