During December 1944 and January 1945 20,000 Jews in Hungary were taken from
the Budapest ghetto and ordered to remove their shoes and then murdered on
the banks of the Danube. Their bodies were dumped in the Danube after being
shot. There is a permanent memorial of 60 pairs of shoes, "Shoes of the
Danube" made of iron on the bank of the river marking the mass execution.

Hungarian and Israeli divers will jointly search for the bones of Jews
murdered on the banks of the Danube. ZAKA, a Hungarian emergency service and
victim identification organization announced divers will have sonar
equipment. Seventy-five years later it is unknown whether the bones will be
found, but if they are, Israeli Interior Minister Deri said the remains will
be brought to Israel for burial. In 2011, human remains were discovered
during construction work on a bridge overlooking the Danube. DNA tests
indicated that they belonged to 20 different people. Results showed the
majority were Ashkenazi Jews >from Europe . Those remains were buried in a
Jewish cemetery in Budapest.

The Jews were murdered by the Arrow Cross Party which was the fascist party
that controlled the Hungarian government >from October 1944 to April 1945.
When the Nazis occupied Hungary and set up a collaborationist government in
March 1944 the Arrow Cross party received official approval >from the new
government. Previously it was not as well recognized although starting in
1939 it was the second most popular party.

During the Holocaust 600,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered, mostly in the
German concentration camps.

See: https://tinyurl.com/y9dfdy95
Original url:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-divers-to-search-for-holocaust-victims-remains-in-hungary-river/

Jan Meisels Allen
Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee