In the scarcity of wartime, shoes were considered valuable possessions; the perpetrators would seize them to be reused or sold. Today, the site is one of the most visited Holocaust memorials in the city, where visitors frequently place candles, stones, and flowers in tribute.

Childhood Memories

Can Togay’s inspiration for the memorial stems from deeply personal recollections. Even decades later, he vividly recalls the atmosphere of his childhood, shaped by stories of those murdered on the riverbanks. This historical weight became the foundation for the concept he eventually realized with Gyula Pauer.

The project was designed not only to facilitate remembrance but to pull a suppressed, painful fragment of both urban and national history out of the shadows.

Togay views the memorial as a vital testimony to the collective memory of the capital, serving as evidence that the city refuses to forget and remains capable of confronting the most difficult chapters of its history.

‘Uncle Instalment’

Gyula Pauer’s contribution to the project was also rooted in a profound personal narrative. At just four years old, the artist spent the final days of the Second World War with his parents in a Budapest air-raid shelter.

As a young child, he understood little of the chaos outside, perceiving only fragments of news about retreating German forces, the Soviet advance, constant bombardment, and the Arrow Cross executions by the Danube.

Returning home after the war brought further confusion rather than immediate clarity. Pauer recalls his father telling him to remain silent about a man they had hidden, whom they referred to as ‘Uncle Részlet’ (a name derived from the Hungarian word for ‘instalment,’ as the family had purchased furniture from him on credit).

The true significance of this secret only became clear later when the man returned to thank the family for saving his life.

Pauer noted that the tragedy of the Holocaust and the persecution of the Jewish community was something he could only process slowly over time. It eventually became a central theme of his artistic career.

The final design of the 'Shoes on the Danube Bank' was the culmination of a long internal journey, sparked by a conversation with an old friend and a suggestion from Togay, resulting in a work that reflects both personal and collective mourning.

Holocaust Remembrance Day in Hungary

Since 2001, Hungary has officially observed Holocaust Remembrance Day on 16 April. This date marks the anniversary of the beginning of the ghettoization of Hungarian Jews in 1944. The observance was originally introduced to ensure that educational and public institutions regularly engage with this period of national history.

Following the German occupation in the spring of 1944, and with the cooperation of local authorities, between 437,000 and 450,000 Jewish people were deported from Hungary. The vast majority were sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.

The speed of these deportations was devastating; the Jewish communities of rural Hungary were almost entirely decimated within only a few months.

In total, the Holocaust claimed the lives of an estimated 550,000 to 600,000 Hungarian citizens. This figure includes those deported, those who perished in forced labor service or the ghettos, victims of the Arrow Cross terror in the capital, and those lost during the death marches.

This tragedy remains one of the greatest human losses in the nation's history, leaving a permanent mark on Hungary’s historical and moral landscape.

Photo: Shoes on the Danube Bank - Wikimedia Commons

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