“How could I even attempt to walk in their shoes? While I’d always thought myself a good shoulder to lean on and capable of great compassion, their suffering was so far beyond comprehension, that I was frozen to the core. Every pair of shoes had been worn day in day out not by a religion or a creed, but by a living, breathing human being deeply loved. In this preserved farmhouse near Kraków, a Jewish family was slaughtered by heartless hate. Their boots are all that remain. How could I ever understand, when I’m only someone looking back at history?!”
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100 words PHOTO PROMPT © Ted Strutz
This week I stepped very much into Rochelle’s territory as the prompt reminded me of piles of shoes I’d heard about in the concentration camps…horrific. Ever since we studied “To Kill A Mockingbird” at school, I have loved and lived by this wonderful quote:
“You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.”
However, some things are just too horrific to comprehend and perhaps we can’t ever really step into someone else’s shoes, but we still need to keep trying. There’s a memorial beside the River Danube in Hungary has 60 pairs of shoes representing Hungarian Jews who, in the winter of 1944-1945, were shot on the banks of the Danube River by the members of the Arrow Cross Party: https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/shoes-on-the-danube-promenade.html
I also recently listened to an interview with William Waller, a holocaust survivor who concealed his Jewish identity and managed to survive, although he was still sent to Auschwitz but managed to survive. He ended up moving to Melbourne where he became friends with my friend’s father who had been a Polish bomber pilot in the RAF during WWII. They were both high up in the textile industry in Melbourne, and after my friend’s dad had a heart attack it was Bill who used to go walking with him to help him out. Roland’s father was Catholic, but his uncle had been a partisan and maybe helped Jewish people escape I’m not sure. Apparently, members of their family died in Auschwitz. Anyway, here’s a link to Bill’s story and I highly recommend listening to it.
Anyway, if you’d like to read more of our stories or even write one of your own, please join us at Friday Fictioneers hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields,
Best wishes,
Rowena
Beyond the Flow 
No way any of us can possibly understand. Nicely done, Rowena.
It’s like it was another world, but it was not. People have not changed much.
I know what you mean. What’s going on now in Ukraine and Israel in particular, but in so many other places and often it’s more insidious.
Thanks, Dale.
Maybe that’s fiction’s job: to help us understand the shoes that history deals up
Poignant.
So true.
Shoes remain. We will never understand.
How many have the empathy?
That’s a very insightful thought, Neil. I was very intrigued to hear that William Waller was a very voracious reader of classic fiction. His formal education had very very basic and cut short and with the help of his older sisters, he educated himself and read a vast range of classics. As I listened to how he survived, I wondered how much this reading had prepared him. He seemed to think very strategically and I’m thinking the reading helped.
I agree. I look at photos of the shoes, the camps, even the people themselves, and I can’t imagine how it must have been. But maybe that’s the point – you can’t walk a mile in another person’s shoes, so you should give them the benefit of the doubt. They know their story better than you ever can.
How can we truly understand the unthinkable, when we (most of us) live comfortably and free from fear? I’ve taught history, and I’ve never gotten past the utter amazement at the inhumanity of mankind.
Good take Rowena 🙌
Yes, the image of piles of shoes and clothes is burned into our minds, from TV documentaries etc. Your narrator struggles to empathise, and it’s true, we can never really comprehend such suffering, but personal items help us. Well told.
Heartbreaking. I also was reminded of the shoes in Auschwitz. And have we learned from it? Not one thing… An important and profound story.
Potent story that leaves me speechless to respond.
Dear Rowena,
One of the most powerful exhibits at Yad V’Shem in Jerusalem is that of confiscated shoes. All shapes, colors and sizes, taken from people as they entered the gas chambers.
Powerful story. And so true. Looking back at history from a safe place (relatively), it’s hard to imagine. Welcome to my world. Well done.
Shalom,
Rochelle
Hi Rochelle,
Thank you very much for mentioning the exhibit at Yad V’Shem. I looked it up and found a reference to a sculpture beside the River Danube in Hungary which has 60 pairs of shoes as a memorial to the Hungarian Jews who, in the winter of 1944-1945, were shot on the banks of the Danube River by the members of the Arrow Cross Party: https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/shoes-on-the-danube-promenade.html
Best wishes,
Rowena