Divers are set to search the Danube for the bones of tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews who were shot and dumped in the river almost 75 years ago.

It is the first attempt to give full Jewish burials to Shoah victims murdered by militiamen of the Arrow Cross Party, which was in power in Hungary from October 1944 until March 1945.

In December 1944 and January 1945 as many as 20,000 people were taken from the Budapest ghetto and executed on the banks of the Danube. 

Hungarian Jews were spared deportations to death camps for most of the Second World War until 1944, when Germany occupied the country.

A memorial of 60 permanently-fixed pairs of shoes made of iron on the East bank of the river, commissioned in 2005, marks the mass execution.

The dive was announced after Zaka, the Israeli emergency response service, brokered talks between Aryeh Deri, Israel’s Interior Minister, and his Hungarian counterpart, Sándor Pintér.

Beginning on Tuesday, divers will use sonar devices in the bid to find the bones – which is further complicated by “the movement of the water and boats, natural decay and even repair work to the bridges over the Danube”, Zaka said.

Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, the chairman of Zaka, said: “This is the final act of chesed that we can do for these holy martyrs who were murdered in Kiddush Hashem.

“Zaka sees this as a mission of the highest order and value, to do everything we can to finally bring them to burial in accordance with Jewish law.”

Mr Deri also paid tribute to Hungarian authorities, thanking Mr Pintér for “assistance, support and technological equipment for the benefit of this project”.