The shoe memorial
The shoe memorial on the Danube is a monument erected in 2005, by the film director Can Togay. This monument represents shoes in cast iron and honors the Jews who were killed, during World War II, by a fascist organisation in Budapest called Arrow Cross. This organisation used to pursue and gather up the Jews on the banks of the Danube. Then the Jews were ordered to take off their shoes, and were shot at the edge of the water so that their bodies fell into the river and were carried away.

There are 60 pairs of shoes in cast iron on the banks of the Danube which are often covered with flowers as a sign of remembrance and memory.

The Emanuel Tree
There are also other monuments which commemorate the holocaust and the massacres of Jews during World War II in Budapest. One of the most important or at least one of the most symbolic is certainly the ‘Tree of life’, also called the Emanuel tree. It is located in The Raul Wallenberg Memorial Park, the home to the Holocaust Memorial, in the backyard of the Great Synagogue of the Hungarian capital city. This Holocaust memorial, The Emanuel Tree, is a weeping willow tree (made by Imre Varga) with the names of Hungarian Jews killed during the Holocaust inscribed on each leaf.

The ritghteous
But the memorials of Budapest are not only commerating the Jewish history. There is also the memorial (four red marble plates located in the Holocaust Memorial of the Dohany Synagogue), commemorating 240 non-Jewish Hungarians who saved Jews during the Holocaust. One of the most heroic figures of the Holocaust in Hungary was Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who prepared Protective Passports under the authority of the Swedish Embassy, saving the lives of thousands of Jews.

Crédits photos : Patrick Flores

Floriane Varachaud & M.A Terminale ES
Cours de Patrick Flores