Name of Exhibit: Rug Hooked Pillow
Submitted by: Miriam (pseudonym)
Date of Origin: 1930s
Description: The pillow was crafted by my grandmother’s sister, Eko, who perished in the Holocaust. She was always doing something with her hands, including embroidery, which she loved.
Voyage to Ottawa: I brought the pillow from Hungary as a precious souvenir of Eko when I immigrated to Canada in 1967. It is one of the few things I have of her.
In November 1944, my grandmother, Eko, my sister, and I were evacuated to a so-called “safe house”, a five- or four-story apartment building in Budapest. Once there, we were sequestered together in a small two-bedroom apartment with about 70 to 80 other people. Regardless of the building’s protective status, every day a family was taken away and shot.
On January 3rd, 1945, the Arrow Cross – a Hungarian fascist organization collaborating with the Nazis – ordered everybody to get out of the building and line up behind the courtyard. My grandmother, who was an ophthalmologist, was recognized by one of the Arrow Cross fascists, who was a patient of hers. He waved to my grandmother to stay out of the line and out of sight. My grandmother, Eko, my sister, and I hid behind the staircase. But Eko did not understand that we were being saved, left hiding, and ran to beg the Arrow Cross not to kill my sister and me. Along with everyone who was lined up, she was taken away, shot, and her body thrown into the Danube River.
My grandmother and eko in their youth
The shoes on the danube promenade (2005)
My grandmother and her sister, Eko. Eko never married and was a like a mother figure to my mother. On January 3rd, 1945, Eko was murdered by the Arrow Cross trying to save my sister, my grandmother, and me.
The Shoes on the Danube Promenade is a memorial to honour the Hungarian Jews who were killed on the banks of the Danube River by the Arrow Cross from 1944 to 1945. Hungarian artist, Gyula Pauer, sculpted out of iron, 60 pairs of men’s, women’s, and children’s shoes to lay on the Pest bank, facing the river. The Arrow Cross often demanded that their victims take off their belongings before shooting them.
