Shoes

When art grabs you and shakes you like a rag doll

I was in Budapest recently, where I took this photograph. They are not real shoes. They are life-sized bronze statues of shoes. They are meant to keep alive the memory of the people murdered by the fascists. The murderers pushed their victims to the edge of the Danube, forced them to take off their shoes, and shot them so their bodies fell into the river and floated away. There are men’s shoes, women’s shoes, and, God help us, children’s shoes.