Shoes on the Danube Bank

Budapest, Danube Promenade.

The Shoes on the Danube Promenade, created by Gyula Pauer and Can Togay, is a memorial on the bank of the Danube in Budapest. It is located on the Pest side of the Danube Promenade at the end of Szechenyi Street, about 300 m south of the Hungarian Parliament and near the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

History

Budapest, Danube Promenade

Shoes on the Danube is a memorial to the Budapest Jews who fell victim to the Arrow Cross militiamen in Budapest and depicts their shoes left behind on the bank when they fell into the river after having been shot during World War II.

January 1945

At first, during World War II, 250 coworkers of Wallenberg were working around the clock to prevent the Jewish population from being sent to concentration camps; this figure later rose to approximately 400. People, amongst whom Lars Ernster, Edith Ernster and Jacob Steiner can be counted, were housed at the Swedish Embassy in Budapest on Üllői Street 2-4 and 32 other buildings in Budapest that Wallenberg rented and then declared as extraterritorial to prevent the people housed in them from being sent to concentration camps.

On the night of January 8, 1945, all of the inhabitants of the building on Üllöi Street were rounded up and dragged away to the banks of the Danube by an Arrow Cross execution brigade from the city commandership. At midnight, Karoly Szabo and 20 policemen with drawn bayonets broke into the Arrow Cross house and rescued everyone there (see also historic frontpage 1947 newspaper). [1]. Among the people 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.

Information from Jacob Steiner after he has read this page: On December 25, 1944, Jacob Steiner's father was shot dead by Arrow Cross militiamen on, falling into the Danube as a result. His father had been an officer in World War I and spent 4 years as a prisoner of war in Russia..

Dr. Erwin K. Koranyi psychiatrist in Ottawa write about the night of January 8, 1945 in his "Chronicle of a Life" in 2006 "in our group, I saw Lajos Stoeckler" and "The police holding their guns at the Arowwcross 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 honored as Righteous among the Nations 04.7.2009 .

• Historic frontpage 1947, Károly Szabó
  Historic frontpage 1947, Károly Szabó
• 
  Swedish Legation Budapest 1944
• 
  Document in the National Archives of Hungary 1945. Thank you letter from Lajos Stöckler, President of the Jewish Community of Budapest, to Karoly Szabo for rescuing 154 persons and his family (8 persons). The rescue also put Karoly Szabo in mortal danger.

Map

• On Google Maps — the memorial is at the top of the map, near Steindl Imre utca, Danube bank [2]
• Danube bank near view: [3] Memorial is on the top of the map, on the bottom Hungarian Academy of Sciences
• Map on Gyula Pauers website [4]

Victims

• Miklós Vig

Media

• Photographs on Gyula Pauers website [5]
• Film — Memorial to the victims [6]

In the news

• "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 cipok 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: "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.)

• 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."

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.)

• More Hungarian newspapers [7]

See also

1. Raoul Wallenberg
2. World War II
3. The Holocaust
4. List of people who assisted Jews during the Holocaust
5. Károly Szabó

External references

• Dreams and Tears: Chronicle of a Life, Erwin K. Koranyi, General Store Publishing House, 2006, ISBN 1897113471, 9781897113479 (pages 89 - 90)
• Gyula Pauer MBT shoes [8]
• MBT shoes http://www.mbtmvp.com
• Edith Ernster remembers [9]" In the darkest days of 1944, the Swedish protective passport even provided some humor in the midst of despair. Edith Ernester, who lived through that time, recalls: "It seemed so strange - this country of super-aryans, the Swedes, taking us under their wings. Often, when an Orthodox Jew went by, in his hat, beard and sidelocks, we'd say, 'Look, there goes another Swede.' A special department was created in the Swedish embassy in Budapest with Wallenberg as its head. It was staffed primarily with Jewish volunteers. Initially, there were 250 workers; later, he had about 400 people working around the clock. Wallenberg seemed to sleep no more than an hour or two a night, and then it was wherever he happened to be working. He was everywhere."
• József Szekeres: Saving the Ghettos of Budapest in January 1945, ISBN 9637323147, Budapest 1997, Publisher: Budapest Archives

• Forgács Gábor: Recollections and Facts; My Days with Raoul Wallenberg (Emlék és Valóság), ISBN 96306003X, Budapest 2006 , in the list of saved persons January 8. 1945. Lars Ernster rescued to Sweden, around 1970 member of the Board of Nobel Foundation

• The history of Wallenberg office / MBT shoes[10]
• Document about January 8. 1945. in Budapest Archives (Hungarian) [11]
• Other documents to January 8. 1945. (English) [12]
• Google search [13]
• Photographs about the MBT shoes [14]