Gozsdu Courtyard and the Ghetto Wall on Király utca
Why is it significant?
Step through the archway at Király utca 13 and the city noise drops away. In front of you, a passage runs straight through the block, from courtyard to courtyard, all the way to Dob utca on the other side. By night it is one of the busiest strips of terraces in Budapest.
Key Facts
| Place | Gozsdu Courtyard and the Ghetto Wall on Király utca |
|---|---|
| Address | Király utca 13, 1075 Budapest, Hungary |
| Geo Coordinates | 47.49880, 19.05870 |
| Part of Walk | Three Synagogues and a Tree of Life: Budapest's Jewish Quarter from Gozsdu to Dohány Street |
| Generated | Generated |
Step through the archway at Király utca 13 and the city noise drops away. In front of you, a passage runs straight through the block, from courtyard to courtyard, all the way to Dob utca on the other side. By night it is one of the busiest strips of terraces in Budapest. By day you can still read the old architecture.
This is the Gozsdu udvar, completed in 1901 to designs by Győző Czigler. Its name is a surprise in a Jewish quarter: Manó Gozsdu, or Emanuil Gojdu, was a lawyer of Romanian origin who left his fortune to a foundation for the education of young Romanian Orthodox students. The foundation built this complex as rental property, with flats above and shops and workshops around the courtyards, many of them run by Jewish tradesmen.
In late November 1944 the Arrow Cross regime ordered the Jews of Pest into a closed ghetto in these streets. It was sealed on 10 December. About seventy thousand people were crammed into a few dozen blocks, in freezing flats with almost no food, fuel or medicine.
The boundary ran through this neighbourhood, and fences and walls cut through courtyards and gateways. Next door, in the courtyard of Király utca 15, a stretch of the ghetto wall has been preserved and partly rebuilt as a memorial, with a plaque. It stands inside a residential building, so the gate is often locked... if it is, simply pause at the door. It is one of the very few physical traces of the ghetto left in the city.
Now look again at the passage, the strings of lights, the people laughing over drinks. That is the strange double life of this quarter, and you will feel it all afternoon: memorials and nightlife sharing the same walls. Come back out to Király utca and continue east along it, past the shopfronts, for a few minutes, to where the street begins to curve.