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Fanning out behind the synagogue is what was once the Jewish ghetto , created by the Nazis in April 1944. As their menfolk had already been forced into labour battalions intended to kill them from overwork, the 70,000 inhabitants of the ghetto were mainly women, children and old folk, crammed into 162 blocks of flats - over 50,000 of them around Klauzal ter alone. Directly across the road from the Wallenberg Garden, Rumbach Sebestyen utca leads westwards to the Synagogue of the so-called Status Quo or middling-conservative Jews, which is outwardly akin to the Dohany utca synagogue but inwardly conforms to Orthodox prescriptions, and isn't open to the public. Returning in the same direction as far as Dob utca, you'll see a monument to Carl Lutz , the Swiss Consul who began issuing schutzpasses to Jews, attesting that they were Swiss or Swedish citizens, as Wallenberg did later. Lutz was a more ambiguous figure, who ceased issuing passes and tried to prevent others from doing so after being threatened by the Gestapo. His monument - a gilded angel swooping down to help a prostrate victim - is known locally as "the figure jumping out of a window". Just beyond, a portal at no. 16 leads into the Gozsdu udvar , an eerie 200-metre-long passageway connecting seven courtyards that runs through to Kiraly utca. A hive of life and activity before the Holocaust, it is now scheduled for redevelopment, which the remaining residents fear will mean becoming an adjunct to the Madach ter business centre. However, Romanian claims to the property, arising from an unsettled prewar compensation deal, have stalled further action and left the udvar in limbo. The kosher Frohlich patisserie at Dob utca 22 is one of several Jewish businesses on and around Kazinczy utca , the centre of the 3000-strong Orthodox community. There's a butcher's in the yard of no. 41, up to the left of Dob utca, while down to the right is a kosher baker (no. 28) and the non-kosher Jewish Carmel restaurant (no. 31). Near the latter stands the Orthodox Synagogue , an Art Nouveau edifice that melds into the curve of the street. Though its interior is off limits to the public, the gate to the right leads into an L-shaped courtyard containing a Jewish school and the Hanna kosher restaurant - also accessible via an arcade on Dob utca. For something quite different, visit the Museum of Electrotechnology ( Magyar Elektrotechnikai Muzeum ; Tues-Sat 11am-5pm; free) in a former electricity sub-station at Kazinczy utca 21. Its curators demonstrate the world's first dynamo (invented in 1859 by Anyos Jedlik) and other devices in rooms devoted to such topics as the history of light bulbs, or the Hungarian section of the Iron Curtain. Though the current was too weak to kill and the minefields were removed in 1965, patrols kept it inviolate until 1989, when the Hungarians ceased shooting escapees, thereby spelling the end of the Iron Curtain as a whole. Just south of the Great Synagogue, Rakoczi utca runs out towards Blaha Lujza ter beside the Nagykorut. Across the Nagykorut from the square is the pitiful hulk of the once renowned New York coffeehouse , whose Beaux Arts facade and Art Nouveau interior have been rotting away ever since competing claims of ownership were filed in the 1990s. Beyond the Nagykorut you leave the Jewish quarter, to enter an area that becomes more working class and tinged with Arab and Chinese immigrants the nearer you get to the "Garment District" around Garay ter and Keleti Station.
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