Some great photos here. "The Battle of Budapest at the end of the Second World War lasted for 50 days. Soviet & Romanian troops laid siege to the Hungarian capital and the outnumbered Hungarian and German troops within it from December 26th 1944, until it surrendered on February 13th 1945. Around 38,000 civilians lost their lives during the fighting. These remarkable before and after pictures show that the city that was left in ruins= and then rebuilt into one of the jewels of Eastern Europe. The locations captured in the black-and-white images- courtesy of the Fortepan Archive - have been precisely matched in pictures by photographer Amos Chapple, on assignment for www.rferl.org to reveal how they've been transformed between 1945 and 1920." www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-8529213/Before-photos-Amos-Chapple-Budapest-rebuilt-WWII-devastation.html
Forgive me butting in here but I couldn't resist posting this snap. It was taken in 2010 and shows my late wife and I on the banks of the Danube with the famous shoes memorial. Look it up ! Ron
I took a tour through central Europe and we spent a short time in the city(s). It's an interesting place but the tour guides didn't spend many words on the war. I suppose if you're on the losing side... They sure did a good job of rebuilding. Of course, then there's Hiroshima.
The destruction is quite limited, lots of buildings with (almost) intact roofs. It was much worse in Hamburg, Berlin, Warsaw, Stalingrad.
