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But the Danube is not blue,” I say. “Ah,” says our guide, eyes crinkling in a grin, “it’s only blue for lovers!” Chuckles all round from out little band of Budapest exploring Canadians, then some loud snorts of laughter when one wise acre pipes up: “Hey it looks blue to me!” We continue our guided tour through the heart of Budapest. The magnificent Parliament Buildings to our left, the historic and very beautiful Chain Bridge ahead in the distance.

“What’s this?” asks a woman strolling just ahead of us. “What are these iron shoes doing here?”

Our guide, suddenly somber, pauses for a moment. “Let me explain,” he says.” It’s very sad.” We gather in closer, the better to hear. Shocked but fascinated by what he is saying, I record the story he tells.

“Miklos Voglhut was, for many years, one of Hungary’s most loved and most famous singers. He performed frequently in many of our most popular cabarets during what I think you call the roaring twenties. It was a time when anti-Semitism was sweeping across Hungary and the rest of Europe so he changed his name to Miklos Vig. Vig in Hungarian means cheerful or merry.

He made countless recordings and performed many times at the Budapest Operetta Theatre and Budapest Orpheum and became one of Hungary’s first radio stars. He was beloved all around the country, the Frank Sinatra, if you like, of Hungary.

But In 1944, despite the fact he did not have a Jewish name and indeed had married into a Catholic family, our very own Hungarian Nazis—the Arrow Cross Party— rounded up Miklos along with many others from the Jewish ghetto. Like so many before him and many more after him, Miklos was forced to strip naked, take off his shoes on the banks of the Danube River, right here where we are standing now, then all were shot at close range so that they fell into the river and were washed away. This was common practice during 1944 and 1945.

What you see here along the banks of the Danube are 60 pairs of rusted shoes cast out of iron. As you can see they are shoes to reflect those styles being worn during those terrible years. And if you look closely you can see that no one was spared from the brutality of the Arrow Cross militia.”

Some of us are in tears by this time, especially when we walk along what is called the ”Shoes on the Danube” and can see children’s shoes.

Our guide points to a high stone bench with these words inscribed in Hungarian, English and Hebrew:

“TO THE MEMORY OF THE VICTIMS SHOT INTO THE DANUBE BY ARROW CROSS MILITIMEN IN 1944-45. ERECTED APRIL 2005”

I will be frank with you. Of all the memorials, including even the one at Vimy the “Shoes on the Danube museum” of Budapest is the one that haunts me still from time to time.

It is what our guide says next that prompts me to include his “Shoes on the Danube” story in this book.

“If you would like to get a better idea of Hungary’s struggle for freedom and independence,” he tells us, “you should visit the ‘House of Terror’ which we call ‘Terror Haza.’

Those words again—“the struggle for freedom and independence.”