Tag Archives: Remembrance Day

Walking Tour of Budapest

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Day 78, Monday November 11, 2019

I posted part of today on Remembrance Day, and now I am adding the rest of our day’s activities.  Here is the rest of our November 11 walking tour.

Bob has organized a walking tour of Budapest today.  As we started our walk I noticed lots of people hanging out on this balcony.
We are staying in the Old Jewish Quarter and the roads are very narrow and crowded.  As we leave this area, the roads widen and there are many pedestrian-only roads and big plazas.  This large ornate building is the first large building I see on the main Street near our apartment. We walk towards the nearby Christmas Markets.  There are lots of small wooden ‘cabins’ filled with beautiful crafts.  I loved these dried fruit ornaments, but I am sure that I wouldn’t be allowed to bring these through Canadian Customs. Too bad, they are lovely and smell wonderful.There are several stands with all sorts of candies… beautiful felted hats, that are priced starting at $150.00 CAD.
This our first Christmas tree of the year. This ‘Little Princess’ is the first of many statues we see on the streets of Budapest. Another ferris wheel, but we decide to pass on riding this one.  St. Stephen’s Basilica is in the centre of Budapest. The inside off the church has lots of gilded ornamentation and a beautiful dome.The main attraction in this church is the thousand year old mummified right hand of King Stephen. If you want to see this relic, deposit a coin and a light comes on to view the hand.
These two borzoi dogs looked like they needed a bath and brushing. There are lots of dogs here and they live their lives on pavement.  I kind of feel sorry for them.
The Fat Policeman Statue represents how hearty the Hungarian foods are, and rubbing his tummy is supposed to bring good luck.  There are many ‘good luck’ statues on the streets of Budapest.The Hungarian government erected the ‘Memorial for Victims of the German Occupation’ statue in the middle of the night in July 2014.

A ‘Living Memorial’ was added in front of the statue as a protest against the government’s message that it was only the Nazi’s who committed crimes of genocide, ignoring the wartime Hungarian governments involvement and responsibility for the Nazi’s occupation.

This ‘Living Memorial is a collection of photos and newspaper clippings about the victims of the war and the Hungarian government’s collaboration with the Nazis.

It is believed that this statue is part of the government attempt to ‘revise’ history.  The war may have ended 74 years ago but it is still very much a part of life here in Eastern Europe. Some seed pods from one of the trees near this statue are interesting. There is a statue of Ronald Reagan in this plaza as well because of his efforts to end the Cold War. There are so many ornate buildings here… like the Parliament Building!  It is so big I can’t get it all into one photo.
 Across the river we can see the Buda Castle. Bob takes a moment to sit with the Hungarian poet Attila József… and then we walk onto the Chain Bridge with its guardian lions for a view of Budapest from the river. This is the Pest side of the river, the side our apartment was on… and this is the Buda side. These two cities were united in November 1873, and the name ‘Budapest’ was given to the new capital. I don’t know what this building is but it had delicate golden trim that sparkled in the late afternoon sun. We find a statue of Roskovics Ignác, a famous Hungarian painter, on our walk along the Danube River. Walking through the Christmas Market on our way home I notice this jar of pickled onions!  They made me laugh!

Remembrance Day in Budapest

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Day 78, Monday November 11, 2019

I am still behind on my blogging,  but I wanted to post this today.

We are in Budapest for Remembrance Day, a country which doesn’t celebrate November 11.  Remembering those who have died during war and conflict this year seems more important than ever.  We have seen so much of the death and destruction caused by war on this trip.

Today we walked along the Danube river to visit the Shoes on the Danube Promenade.  It is an incredibly moving memorial that moved me to tears.A quote from this article explains the history of this memorial.

“Walking along its shores, you’ll come to the end of Szechenyi Street, where you’ll find the most moving Holocaust memorial. named the Shoes on the Danube Promenade, placed in an open space and approachable for visitors. The memorial consists of iron-made, rusty shoes set into the concrete of the embankment.

These shoes stand as witnesses to one of Budapest’s most somber moments during World War II, reflecting the war history and its victims of that time. The location and the elements of the memorial offer an insight into the tragic fate of the Jews who in the winter of 1944-1945 were tied together, shot on the banks of the river, and thrown into it by the members of the Arrow Cross Party. The party publicly murdered thousands of Jews all over Budapest. They found it convenient to throw them into the Danube because the river quickly carried the bodies away. The atrocious Arrow Cross murderers usually forced the victims to remove their shoes before shooting them.

At that time of war, shoes were a valuable commodity and the murderers were quite aware of that, so they would trade the shoes on the black market or wear them themselves. The Jewish children stood terrified while the Arrow Cross pulled their shoestrings out, tying the hands of the victims before shooting them. Sometimes, the hands of two or three people were tied together, adults or children, and the atrocity went so far that only one of them would be shot so he or she would instantly pull the helpless others down in the freezing cold water. During these horrible winter days of 1944-1945, the Danube was called “the Jewish Cemetery.””

“Lest We Forget”