WW2 Monuments in Budapest

There are several major monuments around the Hungarian Parliament building which aim to remember certain aspects of the Second World War. However, two of them are very controversial in Budapest society.

The first, and most poignant, are the shoes on the banks of the Danube. During WW2, Hungary was allied to Germany and so its significant Jewish population - one of the largest in Europe - was persecuted in a similar way to other Axis countries. While initially Hungary tended to deport Jews, where they were then sent to concentration camps, later in the war members of the fascist Arrow Cross Party preferred to take matters into their own hands and skip the middle-man. One common method of execution, which aimed to preserve ammunition towards the end of the war, was to tie three Jews together, strip them of their clothes and stand them over the Danube. The Arrow Cross members would then shoot the one in the middle in the head. The impact of this would cause the trio to fall into the freezing Danube, where the two Jews attached to the corpse would then be dragged down into the river by the dead weight attached to them and drown. This horrifying method of execution is commemorated by the array of shoes on the Eastern side of the Danube.

The second memorial against fascism is much more controversial as it is seen by Hungary's opposition as an attempt to Whitewash Hungary's role in WW2. The monument depicts a German eagle swooping down and stealing the orb of Hungary (depicted as an angel). The monument is inscribed with the words "to the victims of the occupation", totally omitting the enthusiasm with which many Hungarians themselves partook in fascist persecutions, instead laying the blame entirely at the feet of the 1944-5 German occupation.

The final monument is arguably even more controversial and only still stands because it is diplomatically protected by Russia. The memorial depicts the Soviet Red Army seizing Budapest from German forces in 1945, inscribed with a message first in Russian and then Hungarian: "Glory to the liberating Soviet Heroes". Putting aside the inhumane behaviour of the Red Army themselves towards Budapest's population, the communist period of Hungary's history was many things, but a "liberation" it was most certainly not.Weiterlesen