Happy Birthday Bernie

Happy 79th Birthday to Bernard Schwartz, now known as Tony Curtis -- yes, the movie star and father of Jamie Lee.

One of the most notable gifts Mr. Curtis (a Hungarian Jew) has bestowed (through his donations and fundraising), although it is not well known, is the Weeping Willow Holocaust Memorial in Wallenberg Park at the Dohany Street Synagogue in Budapest. The Weeping Willow is a metal structure with willow-like leaves that contain the names of the Hungarian Jews who died in the Holocaust. The Dohany Street Synagogue (aka the Tabac-Shul in Yiddish because Dohany is Magyar for "tobacco") is the largest in Europe. Wallenberg Park is named for Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who defied his government and forged travel documents that helped 20,000 Jews escape the Nazis. The Holocaust really only reached Hungary in 1944 -- before that the Nazi-collaborationist Hungarian government had avoided participating in the Final Solution. Nonetheless, approximately 50% of Hungary's Jews were killed in the Holocaust and Hungary had the second-largest number of Jews killed (560,000; Poland had 3,000,000) in the Holocaust.

Here is a picture of the Weeping Willow. Click his links to see more pictures, including the grave of Art Garfunkel's grandfather in the side yard of the Synagogue (which has gravestones of those who died in the Budapest Ghetto).

Here is a site that provides thumbnail history of the Holocaust. And here is another pic of the Willow.