Szabadság tér, Budapest

Szabadság tér is a public square where Budapest’s political memory gathers around gardens, historic buildings, and monuments. The United States Embassy and the headquarters of the Hungarian National Bank stand along its east side, while Art Nouveau details appear among the surrounding architecture. Ignác Alpár designed two of the square’s buildings.

The square’s most difficult story is its memorial landscape. The monument to the victims of German occupation presents Hungary as an angel attacked by Germany, shown as an eagle; that image hides Hungary’s willing participation in the Holocaust. In front of it, a counter-monument brings together photographs of Hungarians deported to Auschwitz.

You can also find monuments to Ronald Reagan and Harry Hill Bandholtz, as well as a memorial marking the end of German occupation in Hungary. Károly Antal designed some of the Second World War liberation sculpture. This open space occupies the site of the Újépület barrack-prison, where Prime Minister Lajos Batthyány was executed in 1849 after the Hungarian Revolution.

The prison was demolished in 1897, and the square was created here afterward. Its name, adopted in 1900, recalls the Hungarian struggle for independence. A surviving plane tree, planted by Seilern Crescence in 1846, connects the landscaped square with its earlier promenade.