Shoes on the Danube Bank



The Shoes on the Danube Bank is a memorial, which was conceived by film director Can Togay and was created by him and the sculptor Gyula Pauer on the bank of the Danube River in Budapest. It honors the Jews who were killed by fascist Arrow Cross militiamen in Budapest during World War II. They were ordered to take off their shoes, and were shot at the edge of the water so that their bodies fell into the river and were carried away. It represents their shoes left behind on the bank.

The memorial
It is located on the Pest side of the Danube Promenade in line with where Zoltan Street would meet the Danube if it continued that far, about 300 m south of the Hungarian Parliament and near the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Translation: "The composition entitled 'Shoes on the Danube Bank' gives remembrance to the people shot into the Danube during the time of the Arrow Cross terror. The sculptor created sixty pairs of period-appropriate shoes out of iron.  The shoes are attached to the stone embankment, and behind them lies a 40 meter long, 70 cm high stone bench.  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. Erected 16 April 2005." (Source: MTI, Saturday, April 16, 2005.)
 * "A Cipők a Duna-parton elnevezésű kompozíció a nyilasterror idején Dunába lőtt embereknek állít emléket. a szobrászművész hatvan pár korhű lábbelit formált meg vasból. A parti szegély terméskövére erősített cipők mögött negyven méter hosszúságú, hetven centiméter magas kőpad húzódik. Az emlékhely három pontján öntöttvas táblákon magyarul, angolul és héberül olvasható a felirat: "A nyilaskeresztes fegyveresek által Dunába lőtt áldozatok emlékére állíttatott 2005. április 16-án". forrás: MTI 2005. április 16., szombat

Translation: "A holocaust memorial will be dedicated on Saturday, the holocaust victim memorial day, in Budapest. Sixty pairs of cast iron shoes, cast in the styles of the 40's, stand in remembrance of the people shot into the Danube during the Arrow Cross terror. The memorial lies on the riverbank between Roosevelt square and Kossuth square." (source: Népszabadság Online, April 15, 2005.)
 * Népszabadság Online, 2005. április 15. 14:25 "Holokauszt-emlékművet avatnak szombaton, a holokauszt áldozatainak emléknapján Budapesten. A hatvan pár, öntöttvasból mintázott korhű cipő a nyilasterror idején Dunába lőtt embereknek állít emléket a Roosevelt tér és a Kossuth tér közötti szakaszon."

January 1945
During World War II, Raoul Wallenberg and 250 coworkers were working around the clock to save the Jewish population from being sent to Nazi concentration camps; this figure later rose to approximately 400. Lars and Edith Ernster, Jacob Steiner, and many others were housed at the Swedish Embassy in Budapest on Üllői Street 2-4 and 32 other buildings throughout the city which Wallenberg had rented and declared as extraterritorial Swedish to try to safeguard the residents.

On the night of January 8, 1945, an Arrow Cross execution brigade forced all of the inhabitants of the building on Vadasz Street to the banks of the Danube. At midnight, Karoly Szabo and 20 policemen with drawn bayonets broke into the Arrow Cross house and rescued everyone there (see also front page of 1947 newspaper below). Among those saved were Lars Ernster, who fled to Sweden and became a member of 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 shot dead by Arrow Cross militiamen on December 25, 1944, falling into the Danube. His father had been an officer in World War I and spent four years as a prisoner of war in Russia.

Dr. Erwin K. Koranyi, a psychiatrist in Ottawa, wrote about the night of January 8, 1945 in his Dreams and Tears: Chronicle of a Life (2006), "in our group, I saw Lajos Stoeckler" and "The police holding their guns at the Arrowcross cutthroats. One of the high-ranking police officers was Pal Szalai, with whom Raoul Wallenberg used to deal. Another police officer in his leather coat was Karoly Szabo."

Pal Szalai was honored as Righteous among the Nations on April 7, 2009 for helping save these Hungarian Jews.

Karoly Szabo was honored as Righteous among the Nations on November 12, 2012.

Map

 * On Google Maps — the memorial is at the top of the map, near Steindl Imre utca, Danube bank
 * Danube bank near view: Memorial is on the top of the map, on the bottom Hungarian Academy of Sciences
 * Map on Gyula Pauers website

Victims

 * Miklós Vig

Media

 * Photographs on Gyula Pauers website
 * Film — Memorial to the victims