Shoes on the Danube Bank
Hungary
The "Shoes on the Danube Bank" monument is situated on the Pest side of the Danube Promenade, near the intersection of Zoltan Street and the Danube River, about 300 meters south of the Hungarian Parliament and close to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The monument, created by a sculptor, features sixty pairs of iron shoes that pay homage to the 3,500 people, including 800 Jews, who were shot into the Danube during the Arrow Cross regime's reign of terror in 1944-45. The shoes are attached to the stone embankment, and behind them is a 40-meter-long, 70-cm-high stone bench. Cast iron signs with the text, "To the memory of the victims shot into the Danube by Arrow Cross militiamen in 1944-45," in Hungarian, English, and Hebrew, are located at three points. The monument was erected on April 16, 2005.
History
In December 1944 and January 1945, members of the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party police committed numerous murders along the River Danube, specifically targeting Jews in the Budapest ghetto. As many as 20,000 Jews were taken from the ghetto and executed along the river bank. Tommy Dick's book "Getting Out Alive" details the story of one survivor. In February 1945, the Soviet forces liberated Budapest.
During the war, various individuals and organizations, including the Swedish Red Cross and the Swedish Embassy, worked tirelessly to save Jewish lives by providing them with safe houses, including the Swedish Embassy on Üllői Street 2-4 and 32 other buildings throughout the city. This was led by Valdemar Langlet, head of the Swedish Red Cross in Budapest, and later by the diplomat Raoul Wallenberg and 250 colleagues, eventually rising to about 400. Many individuals, such as Lars and Edith Ernster, Jacob Steiner, and others, were able to find refuge in these safe houses. Wallenberg also declared these buildings extraterritorial, meaning they were under Swedish jurisdiction, in an effort to protect the residents.
Giorgio Perlasca, an Italian, also protected Jews by providing them with shelter in the Spanish Embassy. On the night of January 8, 1945, an Arrow Cross execution squad forced the inhabitants of a building on Vadasz Street to the banks of the Danube River. But at midnight, Karoly Szabo and 20 police officers with bayonets charged into the Arrow Cross headquarters and rescued everyone. Among those saved were Lars Ernster, who later fled to Sweden and served on the board of the Nobel Foundation from 1977 to 1988, and Jacob Steiner, who fled to Israel and became a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Steiner's father had been killed by Arrow Cross militiamen on December 25, 1944, and his body thrown into the Danube River. He had been an officer in World War I and had spent four years as a prisoner of war in Russia.
In his book "Dreams and Tears: Chronicle of a Life," Dr. Erwin K. Koranyi, a psychiatrist from Ottawa, recounted his experiences from the night of January 8th, 1945. He mentioned encountering Lajos Stoeckler and seeing police officers, including Pal Szalai and Karoly Szabo, holding guns at Arrowcross cutthroats. Pal Szalai was recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations for his efforts to save Hungarian Jews on April 7th, 2009, and Karoly Szabo received the same honor on November 12th, 2012.
Defacement
In September 2014, Ha'aretz reported that bronze shoes were stolen from the Danube Holocaust Memorial in Budapest, citing the Budapest Beacon. It was not clear if the theft was an anti-Semitic act or a prank, and police were not investigating as no crime had been reported, according to Hungarian newspaper Nepszabadsag.