Urgent effort to preserve thousands of pairs of children’s shoes at Auschwitz

An urgent effort to preserve thousands of pairs of Jewish children’s shoes at Auschwitz-Birkenau has been launched to try to save the tiny footwear from disintegrating through the passage of time.

More than 8,000 shoes are stored at the site of the Nazi death camp, but the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation has now said that “without immediate conservation, these shoes are in danger of disappearing as historic documentation of life and death”.

The preservation initiative, titled ‘From Soul to Sole’, is a partnership between International March of the Living, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, the Auschwitz Memorial, and the Neishlos Foundation, with the latter providing an initial donation.

“When we received the request to preserve the shoes of children murdered in the camp, it was clear that this was a moral obligation,” said International March of the Living’s chair Shmuel Rosenman and president Phyllis Greenberg Heideman.

“We see the conservation of the shoes of these innocent children as an eternal testimony to the brutality of the Nazi regime as well as a significant educational initiative. We believe that everyone who has ever participated on the March of the Living and others around the world will want to take part.”

More than one million people from across Europe were murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau, including more than 230,000 children. When Soviet troops liberated it in January 1945, there were only 500 children under the age of 15 still alive. All were suffering from disease and malnutrition.

“In so many cases, the tiny shoes left at Auschwitz are all that is left of young Jewish children murdered by the Nazis,” said philanthropist Eitan Neishlos. “In these shoes they took their final steps as they were ripped from their mothers’ arms and led to their slaughter.

“Their shoes were stripped from them mercilessly, as were their names, their dreams, and futures. By preserving these iconic shoes, we are preserving the memory of Jewish child victims of perhaps the Nazis’ most harrowing cruelty.

“It is our responsibility as the next generation to keep their memories alive and give them a voice from the darkness. Now is the time for our generation to do whatever we can to preserve the victims’ memory and honour the precious living survivors.”

Memorial director Piotr Cywiński said: “One of the objects that speaks most to the emotions of visitors is a child’s shoe with a sock in it… There is nothing surprising in this, as through the tragic fate of the children in the camp we are able to look into the limitless depths of human evil at Auschwitz.”