The Shoes

In 2014 when I was staying here, I wrote a blog about "Shoes On the Danube".  Yesterday I returned with my sister to this memorial to the Budapest Jews who were shot by Arrow Cross militiamen between 1944 and 1945.

The Arrow Cross militiamen were the pro-German, anti-Semitic national socialist party members of Hungary in 1944-45.  During their reign of terror, their victims were taken down to the edge of the Danube, told to remove their shoes and clothing then they were shot and their bodies fell into the river to be carried away with the current. The “Shoes on the Danube Bank” memorial gives remembrance to those people.  Created by Gayula Pauer, a Hungarian sculptor, and his friend, Can Togay, in 2005, the memorial is comprised of sixty pairs of period-appropriate shoes made out of iron and attached to the stone embankment.  The different sizes and styles of shoes depict how no one was spared - men, women, children; businessmen, sportsmen, etc.  Behind the memorial, at three points, are cast iron signs with the following text in Hungarian, English, and Hebrew:  “To the memory of the victims shot into the Danube by Arrow Cross militiamen in 1944-45.  

The following photos do not really do justice to how moving and poignant this memorial is.  The last time I visited it, it was pouring rain; today, the sun was out but the solemnity of the place is evident nonetheless.  Very moving.