Shoes on the banks of the Danube

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Shoes on the Danube Bank, Budapest (2012)
Parliament, view from the southwest (2004)

Shoes on the Danube Bank ( Hungarian Cipők a Duna-parton ) is a memorial in Budapest designed by Gyula Pauer and Can Togay to commemorate the pogroms against Jews by Arrow Cross members in Hungary during World War II .

Location and layout

The pairs of shoes are on the east bank, on the Pest side of the Danube , at the end of Széchenyistraße about 300 meters south of the Parliament building , near the Academy of Sciences, right on the water. Sixty pairs of metal shoes were placed on the ground over a length of 40 meters to commemorate the shootings of 1944 and 1945, when Arrow Crossers rounded up and shot Jewish Hungarians on the banks of the Danube. The Hungarian historian Krisztián Ungváry speaks of 2,600 to 3,600 victims who were murdered in this way. The shoes are left standing or lying “as if by chance”. The Holocaust memorial was designed in 2005 in such a way that at first glance it does not reveal what happened behind it. The founder of the modern Hungarian pharmaceutical industry, Gedeon Richter , who was murdered there on December 30, 1944, should be mentioned as representative of the victims . The inscription on the memorial plaques in Hungarian, English and Hebrew reads: "In memory of the victims who were shot into the Danube by armed cross-arrows in 1944/45".

In contrast to the memorial for the murdered Jews of Hungary at the Great Synagogue , it is a rather silent commemoration on the banks of the Danube.

Desecration of the monument

On June 15, 2009, unknown perpetrators stuck pig's feet in shoes on the banks of the Danube. Despite public outrage and extensive investigations, the perpetrators could not be caught. In May 2012, the monument in honor of Raoul Wallenberg in the 2nd district of Budapest was desecrated in the same way.

Prevention of a crime on January 8, 1945

The memorial also indirectly commemorates the rescue operations of other Hungarians such as Károly Szabó , an employee of the Swedish embassy , and the 20 police officers, whose name was unknown, who on January 8, 1945 rescued Jewish Hungarians with bare bayonets who were kidnapped by Arrow Crossers from the Swedish embassy rooms to be shot and then helped them escape. Report of the Jakobovits family in 1947: "When the rescue came at the last minute, we stood with our faces to the water on the banks of the Danube."

Among the 154 rescued were Lajos Stöckler and his family of eight, the Jakobovits family, Edith and Lars Ernster, Jacob Steiner, Eva Löw and Anna Klaber. Jacob Steiner's father was shot on the banks of the Danube on December 25, 1944.

Lars Ernster later became a chemist, professor at Stockholm University and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Nobel Prize Committee , Jacob Steiner became a biologist and professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem , Eva Löw and Anna Klaber became doctors in Basel .

Quoted in the book "Dreams and Tears: Chronicle of a Life" (2006) by Dr. Erwin K. Koranyi on the rescue on the banks of the Danube: "The police pointed their weapons at the Arrow Crossers. One police officer was Pál Szalai , who cooperated with Raoul Wallenberg , another, in a leather coat, was Károly Szabó . In our group among them I also saw Lajos Stöckler who were rescued. " Raoul Wallenberg was awarded the honorary title Righteous Among the Nations in 1963 , Pál Szalai received this award in 2008 and April 7, 2009.

See also

literature

  • József Szekeres: A pesti gettók 1945 januári megmentése. Budapest Főváros Levéltára, Budapest 1997, ISBN 963-7323-14-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gerhard Botz, Stefan Karner: War. Memory. History. Vienna 2009, limited preview in Google Books , p. 324.
  2. ↑ http://index.hu/bulvar/2009/06/15/serescsulkoket_raktak_a_holokauszt_emlekmu_cipoibe/
  3. ↑ http://nol.hu/belfold/ujabb_szoborgyalazas__ezuttal_wallenberg_az_aldozat
  4. ↑ http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004UB36KG Who was the man in the leather coat?
  5. ↑ spacetime-sensor.de: Károly Szabó's role among Raoul Wallenberg's supporters 1944 - 1945, documents on January 8, 1945 in the Budapest archives (Hungarian)
  6. ↑ raoulwallenberg.org: Edith Serious remembers
  7. ↑ Jacob Steiner's letter of February 12, 2007 to Tamás Szabó
  8. ↑ Dreams and Tears: Chronicle of a Life, Erwin K. Koranyi, General Store Publishing House, 2006, ISBN 1-897113-47-1 , ISBN 978-1-897113-47-9 , pp. 89-90.
  9. ↑ yadvashem.org: Righteous Among the Nations Honored by Yad Vashem / Sweden (PDF; 108 kB)
  10. ↑ yadvashem.org: Righteous Among the Nations Honored by Yad Vashem / Hungary (PDF; 353 kB)
  11. ↑ cnbc.com: The Associated Press, April 7, 2009 ( Memento of the original from June 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.cnbc.com
  12. ↑ hairetz.com: Haaretz, April 7, 2009

Coordinates: 47 ° 30 ′ 14.1 ″  N , 19 ° 2 ′ 41.2 ″  E