Who Was Watching?

"Who Was Watching?" is a very special composition about the activities in Budapest during the winter of 1944-1945. During this horrendous time of world history, the oppression reached the banks of the Danube. The Jewish people were brought to the bank of the Danube, told to remove their shoes, and were shot. Their bodies were lost to the river leaving only their shoes behind. Their shoes were perhaps the last place where anything of value could be hidden. It is these shoes which inspired the "Shoes on the Danube Bank" memorial and this song. I had visited the memorial once in 2019 and was quite moved by what I experienced. The shoes are bronzed and placed along the bank of the Danube as if someone (men, women, and children) had just stepped out of them. I visited again with my wife in 2022 and was further moved. This time I looked across the river only to see church steeples. I realized that for the Jewish people who were destined for this horrible death, it must have been even more painful to look and see life "outside" going on as usual (or as usual as could be during this time). The question that burned my consciousness was regarding who was watching this heinous act occur. Were there people across the river, perhaps at the churches, who watched? Were there people gathered aroundwatching? Could those watching have done anything if they tried? "Watching but not seeing, allows cruelty to reign who IS watching?"