Budapest：Shoes on the Danube Bank

I halted my steps on an afternoon walk along the Danube Promenade in Budapest. A moment ago, I was walking with my full cheerfulness as I went past the Bridge towards the marvelous Parliament building, bathed in the breeze that wrinkle the Danube river, until my eyesight fell on the pairs of cast iron shoes scattered on the river bank.

The cheerfulness vanished as I saw people lighten their steps and look at the shoes with solemn silence and melancholy. There were shoes of various styles: businessmen’s leather shoes, workers’ worn-out boots, women's high heels, children's shoes...The shoes spread randomly on the stone river bank. Some were put neatly with a full pair standing against each other; some were turned upside down as if the owners took them off in a hurry; there was only one shoe, with the other missing; the shoe laces were missing or left untied. There were new shoes that were barely worn while others had scratches and were deformed... They belong to people of all ages, genders, walks of life. The owners slipped into their shoes and stepped out of their doors, but never returned. If they know their fate, they might have chosen their last pair of shoes with more care. They were were shot dead shortly after they were ordered to take off their shoes by the anti-Semitic Arrow Cross Party. The shoes, as valuable commodities, were collected by the merciless killers and sold in the black market. Bodies of innocent people were washed away by the freezing water, their blood tinting the river red as the last sign of protest.

History was redisplayed to remind people of the atrocities, of the 20,000 Jews brutally short along the banks of the Danube River, of the 80,000 expelled from Hungary. The year 1944 is a year of human de-civilized and degraded. In Budapest, Ferenc Szalasi came to power after Hitler overthrew Miklos Horthy, leader of the Hungarian government. Szalasi, whose name I feel ashamed of writing, murdered over 10,000 Jews during his reign of Hungary with his notorious Arrow Cross Party, -a fascist group that brutally killing the Jews in Budapest during WWII.

Each time, facing any monument of commemoration for the innocent dead, for the soldiers who killed and being killed in wars, for a past that left irreversible scars on civilizations, I feel anger filling my chest, making me gusting for air. My powerless to reverse the situation, and my inability to prevent anything similar from happening, haunted me. I clearly remember my fear, my anger, when I learnt about the terrorist attack in Bataclan Theatre on 13 November 2015. I was in Paris, several kilometers from the man-made hell on earth, hearing the helicopters hovering overhead, ambulances rushing to save lives. Never was I so close to death. Yet, there was nothing I can do except hiding in my own chamber, staring at the increasing numbers of people shot dead one by one by the terrorists. I distain any form that claims innocent lives for political purposes. Yet I do know it also takes tremendous traumas to risk one's own life on terrorist attacks. Those were man-made traumas in the first place that lead to extremism.

I was startled at how humans make demons. The Danube river bank, serene and beautiful on modern days, used to be a manmade cemetory. Jews hunted down in Budapest were taken to the edge of the bank. The shoe laces were taken to tie their hands. Victims were tired together with ropes. Only one was shot dead and the others were dragged into the river with a descending dead body and drowned. Babies and children were not spared and they were frozen dead in the water. Zsuzsanna Ozsváth, a Hungarian survivor, was haunted by the memory: “…what I saw was worse than anything I had ever seen before, worse than the most frightening accounts I had ever witnessed. Two Arrow Cross men were standing on the embankment of the river, aiming at and shooting a group of men, women and children into the Danube – one after the other, on their coats the Yellow Star. I looked at the Danube. It was neither blue nor gray but red. With a throbbing heart, I ran back to the room in the middle of the apartment and sat on the floor, gasping for air."

Human heart can be made soft or hard. My heart missed a beat today when the radio announced that two young lady in Nigeria suicidal bombed in a local market, killing 45 and injured 30. Shaping peaceful minds and guaranteeing decent lives for everyone is the mission of this century.

I hate monuments, as they are almost always related to something unusual, to broken families and lost lives.

I know we need them, as they alarm human heart to stay companionate and sober.

I put my feet among the 60 pairs of shoes left forever on the river bank.

#Hungary #Travel #Europe