After the Invisible Exhibition yesterday we followed a 3 mile self-guided walking tour of the main sights that included the Hungarian Parliament, St Stephen’s Basilica, Chain Bridge, Freedom Square and the many statues that are dotted around Budapest such as the Fat Policeman and Ronald Reagan.
Part of that walk was The Holocaust Shoe Memorial that is on the bank of the Danube close to the Parliament building.
The Memorial is to remember the Jews and other citizens that we killed by the Nazi secret police group, Arrow Cross, that operated during the Second World War. The victims were shot and pushed into the Danube. All were required to line up and take their shoes off not knowing which of them would be shot. When the Nazis wanted to save bullets they would tie a few people together, shoot one, push the group into the freezing water and watch the dead bodies drag the entire group down.
The Memorial has 60, 1940’s era shoes and represent the shoes left behind by the victims.
Unfortunately people have attached padlocks to the Memorial due to the latest craze to put padlocks in public place (they are all over some of the bridges in Budapest) which rather spoils the Memorial although the chain on the Memorial are authentic.
This was not the last reference we saw to the past history of Hungary in the Second World War.
In Freedom Square, which was named after the Freedom fighters who were executed in the 1840s, their had recently been erected of a new Memorial which was the cause of daily demonstrations.
The Memorial is named “Memorial for the victims of the Nazi occupation ” but the demonstrators say that this is phoney Memorial due to the Hungarian Governments involvement with the Nazis during the Second World War. Their case is set out below.
Recent history still playing out in case we should forget the horrors.
We are off on a wine tour today outside of Budapest and the sun is still shining so more from us later.
Very interesting.