Disappearing without a trace

My auntie Gill has recently returned back from a celebratory trip to Budapest in Hungary, and whilst she was there she saw many tourist sights: including the citadel, synagogue, the parliament building (the 3rd largest in the world) and also many memorials. I want to focus on the memorials that she and her friend visited in this post, and as it happens, I'm going to London this weekend to visit her. I intend on visiting the Imperial War Museum for the Holocaust Exhibition that is currently on display there.

Shoes on the Danube


Gill explained in a phone call that during 1944-45, hundreds of Jews and co-workers of Raoul Wallenberg who lived in Budapest's ghettos were lined up on the bank of the River Danube and shot by fascist Arrow Cross militiamen...leaving only their shoes behind. The image to the right shows the memorial, created by Can Togay and sculptor Gyula Pauer, honouring the hundreds of people who were forced to remove their shoes and were murdered at the edge of the water so that their bodies fell into the river and were carried away. The memorial represents the shoes that were left behind on the bank and the different sizes and styles of the cast iron shoes reflect how nobody was spared from the brutality of the Arrow Cross militia (the shoes depict children, women, businessmen, sportsmen etc.).

At first, Gill and her friend came to see the memorial at night and although the memorial was not illuminated by street lights, onlookers had lain night-lights into the well of the shoes or flowers and trinkets as pictured above. She described the atmosphere as 'poignant' and 'moving'...apparently it lost none of it's impact on the second viewing but contrasted to the atmosphere during the day when the memorial was surrounded by clicking cameras and their tourist owners.

Raoul Wallenberg Holocaust Memorial Park

Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish architect, businessman, diplomat and humanitarian. He was born in 1912 and died in 1947, and although his death is largely disputed - his body was never actually found therefore the reason behind the title of this post. He is celebrated for having resisted the Nazi regime and for having saved thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary in the later stages of WWII.

In the rear courtyard of the Dohany Synagogue in the memorial park dedicated to Raoul Wallenberg, lies a creation made by Imre Varga: the Memorial of the Hungarian Jewish Martyrs. It not only resembles a 'weeping willow' and forms the Tree of Life (whose leaves bear inscriptions with the names of victims), but also represents an overturned Menorah. Perhaps it can be interpreted that the leaves symbolise the life of a human being and the overturned Menorah portrays the destruction of Jewish lives and faith: for at least 400,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered by the Nazis. According to Gill the branches sway if there is a breeze, as a real tree would and she said it was very calming and peaceful to be there. 

Linking back to the first few sessions of the project, I'm sure the young people in the group would classify these memorials as beautiful, especially the willow tree. Although I have never visited either of the memorials in Budapest, I'm sure that I would have felt the same emotions as my auntie Gill, her having long been an advocate of silent contemplation before memorials. I can feel it in my chest, a kind of sadness that runs through my body but is peaceful at the same time: knowing that a handful of the people who were murdered by the Nazis are being thought of on a daily basis. Personally, the problem with these kind of memorials though, is that they are very photographable. There's nothing to stop you taking hundreds of pictures in front of the memorials and I highly doubt a 'selfie' in this situation is appropriate. Again, there is a very fine line between mystifying the past and creating a long-lasting, hard-hitting historical artefact to commemorate those lives lost to war and Holocaust. 

You might be thinking, 'she's a student, what does she know about it? She's no expert historian!'

But I'm human and we are put on earth to be human (and also to have confused, conflicting ideas about memorials).

Peace. 

Thanks to the lovely, one and only Gill Willians for background and pictures.