The Shoes on the Danube Bank

The Shoes on the Danube Bank

Pairs of shoes
haphazardly waiting
along a bank of the Danube in Budapest.
Waiting since
mid-winter 1944-5.

Waiting forever
as imagination supplies
the women and children standing there
on a brutally cold winter's day,
staring in dismay
at frigid waters raging by.
No escaping
the finality of the moment--
ordered to step out of their shoes
before being shot
to fall into tomorrow.
Children.
No one was spared.
Nazies trying to eradicate
that which is immortal.

Ice shards pierce my heart.
Social Media post stops me
in my scrolled tracks
and I sit there
tears streaming.
I can't help
but question
the why of it all.
The unmitigated gall.

The Shoes on the Danube Bank - a memorial in honor of the Jews who were killed by Hungarian nazis in Budapest in winter of 1944-1945. They were lined up and ordered to take their shoes off before being shot at the edge of the water so that their bodies would be carried away by the stream. Some of those were children’s shoes.

Still searching for picture credit.