Danube Shoes or Danube Shoes; It consists of 60 pairs of iron shoes stretched along the banks of the Danube in Budapest, Hungary. These shoes, located in front of the Budapest parliament building, It was built to commemorate the massacres of Jews in World War II. Designed by film director Can Togay, the shoes were brought to life by sculptor Gyula Pauer. Prepared in 2005, this monument reminds of an extremely sad historical event. The shoes, which are fixed to the riverside, attract great attention by the visitors and candles are lit in memory of the deceased.
The shoes, in the position of an open museum, stretching for meters along the banks of the Danube, have the characteristics of shoes from the 1940s. This monument, which looks like randomly removed shoes, also touches the personality traits of the murdered people. The shoes that give the feeling of being left there at that moment are in the form of women’s, men’s, children’s and elderly shoes. Different forms of shoes; refers to distinctions such as gender, identity, occupation. Shoes are also an important monument in terms of showing the ugly face of the war and commemorating the people who fell victim to the brutality. On the cast iron signs positioned at 3 points along the monument, in Hungarian, English and Hebrew languages; There is an inscription “In memory of the victims who were shot and thrown into the river by the Arrow and Cross militia”.
The Painful Story of Tuna Shoes
In 1944 during the Second World War; Hungarian government Adolf Hitleris defeated. The Hungarian government leader, Miklos Horthy, is replaced by Ferenc Szalasi. Ferenc Szalasi supports and cooperates with the Nazis. As a result of the Nazi policy followed by the national socialist Arrow Cross Party in Hungary, blood-curdling events begin to occur. In the events between 1944 and 1945; 80,000 Jews are exiled from Hungary to the Austrian border. Thousands of Jews were forcibly taken from their homes to Nazi concentration camps sent and many killed in the streets.
Since it became difficult for the exiled Jews to be taken to the camps by train, it was decided to kill them where they were found. About 20,000 Jews are shot on the banks of the Danube by the militia of the Arrow Cross Party on cold winter nights. People whose shoes are taken off are forced to jump into the Danube after being tied around the ankles three at a time. One of the connected people jumping into the river is shot, and the others are drowned to death. The shoes that remained after the massacre stretch for meters along the Danube River. Because of these painful events, the Danube was called the “Jewish Cemetery” for a long time.
The reason for removing the shoes of the deceased is that the shoes were very valuable at that time. The shoes, which were taken out to sell on the black market, were seen as more valuable than human life. These shoes, which remained from the Jews who were executed at that time, came to life on the black market. After long years that these painful events were covered and not remembered, the Iron Shoes Monument was built in his memory. It is an important monument to commemorate the ugly memories of the past and to commemorate the people who fell victim to this brutality.
