The Accidental Mourner

by Kayte Steinert-Threlkeld

A rather unusual topic for a blog post? Perhaps, but I want to share with you experiences my husband and I, both Jewish, recently had on an AMAWaterways river cruise along the southern Danube (Gems of SE Europe).

Several years ago in Israel, we toured Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem dedicated to preserving the attempted annihilation of the Jewish people by Hitler as well as to honor the estimated six million Jews who died during the Holocaust. The complex, in an understated, awesome manner, brings you up close and personal with the horrors of the Holocaust.

Yet we had a different, and perhaps even more meaningful Holocaust remembrance on our recent river cruise.

For the first time in our lives, we walked where our ancestors walked. We stood where they died. We visited synagogues, upon request and often on our own, that now serve as cultural centers or are open to tourists, but no longer function as a synagogue.

Why? There are not enough Jews left in these communities to support a synagogue as a house of worship. There are not enough Jews left in these communities to attract even an itinerant rabbi for special occasions or the High Holy Days.

Nowhere was this experience more personal than in Budapest at the Shoes on the Danube Bank memorial. This understated memorial once contained 60 pairs of shoes (originally) made of iron, of all shapes and sizes. Men and women’s shoes. Children’s shoes. The memorial was created in 2005.

At this spot on the Danube, in 1944-1945, a marker in the ground reads “To the memory of the victims shot into the Danube by Arrow Cross Militia Men in 1944-45.” It is estimated that as many as 20,000 Jews from the Budapest ghetto were taken to the riverbank and executed. Following instructions to remove their shoes (which had more value than their lives, according to the fascists), they fell into the Danube and washed out to sea, a more expedient measure than digging a mass grave. The Danube River was not the famous Blue Danube during this tragic period; the river ran red.

Sixty pairs of shoes no longer line the bank. Some were stolen in September 2014. Maybe a prank? Maybe an act of anti-Semitism? Police never investigated.

What is interesting is how visitors treat that site. Most of the shoes had rocks placed in them, a common practice for Jews as we visit a cemetery. A rock is often placed atop a headstone, to let your loved one know you have not forgotten them and came to visit.

Memorial candles were placed by some of the shoes. Several had been tied with a yellow ribbon. And the words to the Kaddish, the memorial prayer we recite to remember our loved ones, were on my lips and in my heart.

The memorial was not on our tour that day; we left our tour group, got directions, and visited on our own. During this entire trip, only one synagogue, now a cultural center restored by Unesco, was on the tour. It is located in Vidin, Bulgaria.

We saw this same scenario in Amsterdam and Prague on a prior trip. Where once Prague was home to 45,000 Jews, perhaps the Jewish community now numbers 4,500 and its synagogues are in the suburbs. The Jewish Ghetto is a must-see if you visit Prague. It is pristine, because Hitler wanted to “save” the site as a memorial to an “extinct race.”

But I digress. In Pec (pronounced Pesh), we found a beautiful synagogue now kept open by volunteers. There are only 20-30 Jews left in this village, and they try very hard to maintain the synagogue and welcome visitors. But no services are held here.

In Belgrade, Serbia, we saw a high rise being built on the site of one of the earliest concentration camp for Jews and Roma, Topovske Sure, once home to the Belgrade fairgrounds.

Only in Vidin, Bulgaria, was there a synagogue on the tour. The village touts itself as a “triangle of peace,” housing a synagogue (now a cultural center), a mosque, and a church. The synagogue, built to hold 1,000 congregants in the late 1890s, has been beautifully restored by Unesco, with renovations completed only in 2024.

According to our tour guide, Jews from Vidin and the area had been rounded up, placed in cattle cars, and were headed to the concentration camp, when the commander-in-charge halted the train, retraced its route, and freed the Jews. No one deserved to die because of their faith, he said. Bulgaria is one of the few European countries that protected its Jewish population. Hitler was so angered he bombed Vidin two more times, including a wedding with 2,000 guests. Revenge has no mercy. Very few Jews reside in Vidin today.

On our last day of the cruise (before flying to Istanbul!), we visited the tiny community of Nikopol, having no desire for a full-day tour to other sites. As we walked through this village of maybe 3,000 residents, we stumbled upon a granite monument to the strong Jewish community that was once here, as early as the 1500s (following the 1492 expulsion from Spain, Jews fanned out across Europe and Asia).

So our beautiful cruise down the South Danube was not only a cultural experience, but a religious experience as well.

We will cherish our memories and photos of those days, and pray for the growth of Jewish populations that were decimated in World War II.

Lest we forget … No.

“Yitgadal veyitkadnsh shmeh rabbah,” a transliteration of the first line of the Kaddish: Magnified and sanctified be His great name.