The Shoah's Shadow

I recently spent two weeks in Central Europe. As in the past, it was a frequently unsettling experience because no matter where you go, the Shoah (along with other dark sides of Jewish Life in Europe) hovers over you like a cloud. Its fingerprints and impact are everywhere. In a sense, these are more insidious and disconcerting in cities and towns than in 'official' Holocaust sites, if only because they are less tangible and more all-pervasive. Sometimes, evoking a tragedy has a greater impact than confronting it directly. In the latter case, it's (as it were) 'confined.' In the former, it threatens to creep up on you and swallow you up. (The 'Shoe Memorial' in Budapest is a case in point. You think you're out for a stroll along the beautiful Danube. You then discover you're very much mistaken.)


"Shoes Along the Danube"