by Joan Leotta
on Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah)
Our tour bus was rushing to Reach the next “place to see” In Budapest when I looked Out the window to watch Night begin to be reflected In the Danube. We turned a corner and Driving close by the river, I saw, an installation of sculpted shoes along the banks. Our guide did not seem to notice. Her purview was government buildings and restored churches. With wifi I reached back In time, to the moment when real people, Budapest’s Jews, fell out of those shoes into the Danube as Nazi machine guns cut through their bodies. Men. Women. Children. My heart began to pound, Evil lives on where people chose to ignore it past or present. Only remembering can begin to protect us from evil perpetrating such again.
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Joan Leotta is an author and Story Performer.