The sixty pairs
1940s styles for men, women and children, some tipped over as though just stepped out of.
On a stone embankment on the Danube, a little south of the Parliament, sixty pairs of cast-iron shoes stand fixed at the water's edge. Men's, women's and children's shoes in 1940s styles, some placed neatly, some tipped over as if just stepped out of. There is no railing and no plinth — they sit directly on the ground where their owners stood. The memorial is to the victims of the Arrow Cross, the Hungarian fascist militia, which in the winter of 1944-45 shot thousands of Jewish civilians on this bank: people were marched to the edge and ordered to take off their shoes — footwear being a valuable commodity that could be sold — and then shot, so the river carried them away. The work was made by the film director Can Togay and the sculptor Gyula Pauer in 2005. The site is always open and free, and the visit is short but among the heaviest things you will do in Budapest. Visitors leave candles, roses and small stones inside the shoes. It is five minutes' walk from the Parliament along the same embankment, so it folds in easily — but do not hurry past it on your way to something else.
1940s styles for men, women and children, some tipped over as though just stepped out of.
No base, no railing — the shoes sit at exactly ground level, and that design decision is the source of the memorial's force.
Candles, roses and small stones inside the shoes — the stones a Jewish custom at graves, left here daily.
Because victims were ordered to remove their shoes before being shot at the water's edge: footwear was a valuable wartime commodity, collected and sold. The shoes are not an abstract symbol but the one thing that was actually left on the embankment.
A Hungarian fascist party that took power in October 1944 with German backing and, within a few months, carried out mass killings of Budapest's Jews — including the riverbank shootings and deportations to the extermination camps. Their brief rule was among the most violent chapters of the war in Hungary.
The site is open and nobody is turned away, but its meaning is heavy and needs explaining. From about ten upwards with a parent's preparation; for younger children, passing by without detail is enough.
The Dohány Street Synagogue and Tree of Life in District VII, the Holocaust Memorial Center in southern Pest, and the House of Terror on Andrássy Avenue — together the four tell the whole Hungarian 20th century.
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The grand Parliament directly behind you and the river in front — the juxtaposition of state symbol and crime scene is deliberate.
Danube promenade, just south of the Parliament, Pest 1054