Holocaust Memorial Plaque Unveiled on Liszt Academy’s Wesselényi Street Building

The building of the former trade school erected to the plans of Frigyes Feszl in the early 1870s, which now bears the name of composer György Ligeti and has housed the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music since its overall reconstruction in 2011, held a plaque on its Wesselényi Street façade placed by the Alliance of Jewish Communities of Hungary (MAZSIHISZ) in 1996 to pay tribute to those anti-Nazi resistance fighters who were killed during the German occupation of the city. Due to the proximity of the gate of the Budapest ghetto on Wesselényi Street, the building was used as Nazi and SS barracks in the last years of World War II. On 28 December 1944, a gang of Arrow Cross militiamen and Hungarian SS soldiers of German descent attacked the hospital at Bethlen Square; the following day 28 young men were dragged to the school building on Wesselényi Street and on 29 December 81 people were executed, among them the members of the Visegrádi Street resistance group and the Jewish members of the “KISKA” (Auxiliary Law Enforcement) unit of the Vilmos barracks. This tragic event was first commemorated in 1964 by the Patriotic People’s Front and the 7^th District Council.

Photo: Liszt Academy / Barnabás Szabó

At the request of the Gidófalvy Memorial Committee, the original plaque was removed to the committee’s memorial site in the 13^th district with the purpose that all relics related to the “KISKA” units should be collected at one place. Under the presidency of András Batta and as part of the renovation project, the Liszt Academy had a new commemorative plaque made on the initiative of MP János Fónagy, Szabolcs Szita, former managing director of the Holocaust Memorial Center and László Bóka, President of the Erzsébetváros Cultural Association. The new plaque with an inscription similar to the previous one was unveiled on 12 May 2015 with the participation of Dr. Andrea Vigh, President of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, Zsolt Vattamány, Mayor of Erzsébetváros and Péter Freiman representing the Alliance of Jewish Communities of Hungary (MAZSIHISZ).

Photo: Liszt Academy / Barnabás Szabó

At the unveiling of the memorial plaque speeches were given by musicologist and former Liszt Academy President András Batta and cellist Péter Freiman from the MAZSIHISZ, while the ensemble of the Liszt Academy’s Trombone Department (artistic director: Gusztáv Hőna; members: Attila Sztán, Tibor Ujj, Márk Antal Tóth, Barnabás Brindás, Norbert Czeilinger and János Angyal) performed Beethoven’s funeral music Three Equali.