Manager Magazin
2006. September
Gaal Ilona: Under Auction. Synagogue-business

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(Translation to come)

Manager Magazin

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(Translation to come)

Alpokalja-Online
2006.12.23.
Synagogue For Sale - Little absurd from Kőszeg

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(Translation to come)

I would like to focus on a few valuable films and intriguing filmmakers, because they are worth noting. (The films will be re-screened in the Urania Theater next week, through Wednesday.)

Zsuzsanna Gellér-Varga's film, "Synagogue For Sale," is a documentary with a moral, the story of the plight of the abandoned synagogue in Kőszeg. Due to several changes in ownership, the Jewish religious community's incompetence, the state and local governments' passivity, and the preservationists' indifference, to this day there is still no one committed to saving the synagogue, whose condition will soon resemble Olaszliszka [a Hungarian village whose crumbling and disappearing synagogue and cemetary were recorded in a three-part documentary by famed Hungarian director Miklós Jancsó]. One of my friends recently remarked that the one thing in Hungary that you can count on is envy. This film depicts the difficult road traveled by a middle-aged couple, willing and able to restore a small part of the site in keeping with its heritage, but meet with hostility and envy at every turn.

Film.hu
2007. 02. 02.
Viktória Réka Kiss: The jury's evaluation of the documentary films

"...The jury significantly praised these films: Hungarian Football (András Pires Muhi), They Live Their Lives (Zsigmond Dezső), Synagogue For Sale (Zsuzsanna Gellér-Varga) and The Cattle-Car (Zelki János) ..."

Judapest.org
2007. 01. 31.
"vadjutka" blog: Synagogue For Sale

"...A story about the white spots born by the changing of the regime, the shoving of responsibilities, impotence, Jews and non-Jews and about a soon disappearing monument."

Élet és Irodalom
2007. 03. 02.

Lóránt Stőhr: Returnees, Displaced Persons, Emigres
Reflections on the Documentaries Presented at the 38th Hungarian Film Festival

"In her film "Synagogue For Sale," Zsuzsanna Gellér-Varga delves into the fate of the synagogue in the Hungarian town of Kőszeg. The ongoing saga surrounding the synagogue's sale and the rocky road to its restoration shed light on the excruciating responsibility of preserving the Jewish community's physical heritage and its past. The film's tightly woven structure focuses on a sharp conflict between the couple who purchase the synagogue's auxiliary buildings and wish to preserve the buildings in their historical context, and the uneasy alliance between the Jewish community and town administration who, late in the game, realize what's at stake. If we were to read about this conflict as a brief newspaper item, the latter's position would seem the reasonable one: yet this documentary shows us what's between the lines, and its footage, filmed over the course of months, demonstrates the human integrity of the activist couple."

Ferenc Wostry: Spaniards in the Pantry
The Cinefest in Miskolc, Hungary

"Zsuzsanna Gellér-Varga's documentary, "Synagogue For Sale," paints a starkly honest picture of a local government's incompetence, the small-mindedness of the local Jewish community, and the attempts of two ordinary, but extraordinarily capable, persons to rescue the Kőszeg synagogue, abandoned since the war and about to collapse. It is the kind of effective, fact-finding documentary so rare in Hungary."

Ildikó Kárpáti: "Remains of the Days"
"Synagogue for Sale" - a documentary film by Zsuzsanna Gellér-Varga

"The ruins of the Koszeg synagoge stands still in the heart of beautiful Koszeg as does the history of the Hungarian Jews in Hungarian history: it's an unheard of, shameful, unprocessable but at the same time unavoidable, eery and a highly horrible thing. They stand apart and can't deal with each other."

Zona.hu
László Szále: A Stubborn Synagogue
in the Heart of Koszeg
2008. July 8.

"The synagogue of Koszeg doesn't want to collapse, although it has been standing empty since 1944 and for - almost - everybody this would be the most suitable outcome.
The city government could become carefree, the owner(s) would have a cheaply bought and glamorous inner-city property, they wouldn't have needed to renovate the temple once it's collapsed. But - as for now - it stands still."