MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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Shoes on the Danube
Poignant memorial to Jews murdered in 1945 by Hungarian fascists in Budapest
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ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
ON THE eastern bank of the Danube promenade, some 300 metres south of the parliament building in Budapest, there’s a 40-metre-long stretch at the very edge of the river occupied by 60 pairs of shoes.
Cast in iron and covered with a rust patina, some have flowers left in them.
Women’s, men’s and children’s shoes of all sizes and styles provoke a sense of dread and horror. A plaque in Hungarian, English and Hebrew commemorates the victims shot by Arrow Cross militiamen in 1944–45 on the spot.
Devoid of the excessive pathos of many memorials, it employs minimalism to deliver a blow of immeasurable sadness followed by revulsion at the deeds of the murderous perpetrators.
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