Over the last thousand years there were many influences that shaped Budapest, from the Ottoman Turks, to the glory days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. However, more recently the dark years of Nazi occupation followed by Soviet oppression left wounds that are now being reconciled.
On the banks of the Danube there is a trail of cast iron 1940’s era shoes. This chilling installation is in memory of the nearly 20,000 Jews shot along the banks, their bodies left to be washed away by the river. The shoes had value and were removed prior to execution, thus the inspiration for this tribute.
In 2002 an interesting museum, The House of Terror, opened in the former headquarters of the AVN, the Hungarian version of the soviet KGB or East German Stasi. The exhibits follow the history of oppression and surveillance by the Arrow Cross Party, the fascist party aligned with the Nazi occupiers, and later by the Soviet backed AVN. For more information on the Terror Museum: https://www.terrorhaza.hu/en
As regimes change, statues are toppled, but then where do these propaganda icons go. Well, just a 30 minute bus ride outside of Budapest is Memento park, the final resting place for the lost leaders of the failed communist system. Here in this offbeat park, we were able to admire the monumental sculptures as historical artifacts, and for an additional thrill, I was able to get behind the wheel of a Trabant, the East German automobile which became a universal symbol of a failed economic model.
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