Shoes on the Danube Promenade
Memorial at the Danube to the victims of the Holocaust

Detailed picture subtitles

1. The river Danube in Budapest, view from the commemoration site. The Danube divides the city into two: Buda and Pest, once independent cities, they united in 1873 to form the present day Hungarian capital.
2. The quiet embankment today.
3. The embankment of remembrance.
4. The shoes were placed on the Pest bank of the river.
5-9. Shoes and silence.
10. A mosaic monument on the sidewalk, not far from the shoes on the embankment. Inscription in Hungarian on it: In the memory of the Hungarians who fell victims to the Arrow Cross terror in the winter of 1944-45.

History and background

The idea to place a monument on the river embankment to the victims of the Arrow Cross terror belongs to Gyula Pauer, Hungarian sculptor awarded the Kossuth-prize, and to his friend Can Togay. The monument contains of 60 pairs of iron shoes, forming a row of about 40 metres. It is a commemoration dedicated to the victims of the fascist Arrow Cross party who shot the people right into the river, sparing themselves the hard work of burials. The victims had to take their shoes off, since shoes were valuable belongings at the time.
The site is symbolic, this part of the embankment was not the only one used for this purpose.
The iron shoes were placed on the embankment in 2005, on 16th April. The name of the composition is Shoes on the Danube Promenade, each pair being modelled after a contemporary shoe from the 1940's.

Special opportunity! Take a look at the shoes!

Click here to take a 360 degree look at the shoes. The panoramic photo is work of Gábor Rév.

Tell your children... A documentary.

This is a Holocaust-movie, based on real events. At the end of the second World War, thousands of Hungarian-Jewish people were shot in to the river by their own fellow citizens. The Hungarian Arrow Cross members, cooperating with the German Nazis butchered and robbed so many people at night or dawn at he bank of the Danube. This film is about a little girl who managed to escape this horror. At the end of the film, we see her as an old lady, as meets a couple of neo Nazis. History repeats itself.
Tell your children... - watch the trailer

More photos

Check out the homepage of the sculptor Gyula Pauer for photos about the preparation of the shoes, the opening ceremony, Holocaust commemoration at the shoes and also memorial plaques in Hungarian, English and Hebrew.
photo galleries...

Károly Szabó

"Between 1944 and 1945 Károly Szabó was one of the typewriter mechanics of the Swedish Embassy. Dr. Ottó Fleischmann, a Doctor of Medicine and psychologist, employee of the Swedish Embassy, motivated Károly Szabó to play an active role in the rescue actions of Raoul Wallenberg."
"Károly Szabó attracted exceptional attention on December 24, 1944 as Hungarian Arrow Cross Party members occupied the Embassy building on Gyopár street. He rescued 36 kidnapped employees from the Budapest ghetto. This action attracted Raoul Wallenberg's interest. He agreed to meet Szabó's influential friend, Pál Szalai, a high ranking member of the police force The meeting was in the night of December 26. This meeting was preparation to save the Budapest ghetto in January 1945."
read full article... on Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.

Károly Szabó's role among Wallenberg supporters

List of people who assisted Jews during the Holocaust

Since 1963, a commission organized by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority in Israel, and headed by an Israeli Supreme Court justice, has been charged with the duty of awarding people who rescued Jews from the Holocaust the honorary title Righteous Among the Nations. As of January 2007, 21,758 people have received the honor.
read full article... on Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.

Shoes on the Danube Promenade

read full article... on Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.

top