The sky was pigeon grey and the Danube a sludgy green on the last day, the day I walked on the stone slabs beside the river and looked at the discarded shoes, and cried. A shiver of wind rippled the surface of the water.
I heard about the shoes when I arrived in Budapest. My guide Andras, merely pointed in the direction of the river and remarked casually: “The shoes are over there but you can’t see them from here.”
“What shoes?” I enquired.
But the moment passed and the mini bus swept over the Chain Bridge. I looked back to see where he had pointed and saw nothing. We were climbing into the Buda hills. Andras was taking us up to the Fisherman’s Bastion, the Royal Palace and to the top for a magnificent view back across the river to Pest, the Parliament building and spectacular church spires.
But it was raining; a fine mist lay like muslin over the city, removing the skyline and blotting out every landmark. At the top I strained my eyes and took a photo of ghostly shapes. And then Andras whipped out his mobile phone and showed me what it would have looked like on a bright sunny day. I got the picture.
I was spending three days in this city of beauty and terror. Three days to see the winter skaters twirling on the lake like Lowry folk, skimming stick-like over the icy surface; to wander along dim corridors in the thermal spa and emerge, frozen feet climbing stone steps, to sit under the stars in the hot minerally water which bubbled up from deep in the ground.
Three days to visit markets, wood smoke curling in the air, and savour raspberry schnapps punch and hot sour cherry beer and watch, just watch, not taste, while a man stirred a frying pan filled with what looked like shiny white marbles and which was labelled unenticingly ‘rooster testicle stew’.
Time to take a tram ride along by the Danube and visit the gold filled Parliament; to cruise by candlelight on the river and spend an evening at the Opera. Those were the beautiful things.
The horror came in the form of a tall grey building on a corner in Andrassy Boulevard, the House of Terror, a place of indescribable evil, where men and women were tortured and imprisoned and where their stories are told today so that all will know and remember those brave people and so that no one ever forgets Hungary’s darkest moment.
The year was 1944. Hungary became a battleground, first occupied by the Germans and then after the siege of Budapest, early the following year, by the Soviets. Brutal times wrecked a beautiful city and forced the population to hide underground like rats. It was Hungary’s own fascist group, the Arrow Cross party which committed the riverside atrocity. It was they who ordered the Jews to line up at the water’s edge and remove their shoes before they shot them into the river.
And now I knew more about the shoes I went to look for them. As I walked beside the river I came across more than 60 pairs, a tumble of discarded shoes, old boots, tongues lolling, laces tangled, dainty shoes with heels and children’s shoes, sandals with rusty buckles. No order, just abandoned.
Today the shoes are cast in iron, a memorial to the Jewish men, women and children who died. A fading red rose lay across one shoe. A candle had been placed in a child’s boot. The people of this beautiful city still remember the horror of its past and the bravery of those who suffered. How can I not be inspired by their bravery?
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