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A Soviet soldier walks through a mound of victims' shoes piled outside a warehouse in Majdanek soon after the liberation. Majdanek, Poland, August 1944.
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To many people, images of shoes are stark reminders of the fragility of life during the Holocaust. In some cases, piles of shoes provide one of the few lasting signs of those who had been murdered at death camps. In other images, you see survivors being fitted with shoes as they struggle to emerge from horrendous circumstances.

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All Content Tagged 'shoes'

Survivors of the camps lacked even basic possessions, such as footwear. The Red Cross issued these United States Army boots to Jacob Polak in June or July 1945 after his repatriation to the Netherlands.
Artifact
Boots issued to Jacob Polak by the Red Cross
Jewish teenager Ava Hegedish drew this poignant picture of her mother's well-worn shoes while in hiding.  It was drawn while Ava was in hiding at a farm near Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia), between 1941 and 1944. Once Nazi Germany and its Axis partners partitioned Yugoslavia and Belgrade fell under German control, Ava’s father thought the family’s best chance of survival was to separate and go into hiding. Ava ended up at a farm with some extended-family Serbian relatives. Because she didn’t speak the local dialect, Ava pretended to be deaf and mute. She occasionally made drawings on whatever scraps of paper she could get. After the region was liberated in October 1944, Ava learned that her father and sister had been killed. She reunited with her mother Beatrice and settled in Belgrade, where Ava attended art school. She later worked as a set designer in film and theater. Ava and her mother immigrated to Israel in 1949, and some years later, after her mother died, she eventually settled in Chicago. Now known as Ava Kadishson Schieber, her work has been shown in galleries throughout the United States. The young girl in hiding who once drew on scraps of paper has also published poems and stories about her ordeal, and given presentations to schools and community groups.
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Drawing of shoes by a Jewish teenager in hiding
Jewish forced laborers at work making shoes in a ghetto workshop. Kovno, Lithuania, December 1943.
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Jewish forced laborers making shoes
Jewish orphans after the Holocaust are fitted with shoes from the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), en route to Allied occupation zones in Germany and Austria. Prague, Czechoslovakia, August 25, 1946.
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Jewish orphans trying on shoes
After the liberation of the Flossenbürg concentration camp, two US army infantrymen examine a pile of shoes belonging to victims of the camp. Flossenbürg, Germany, May 1945.
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Shoes belonging to victims of Flossenbürg
A pair of shoes left behind after a deportation action in the Kovno ghetto. Photographer George Kadish captioned the photo "The body is gone." Kovno, Lithuania, circa 1943.
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Shoes left behind after a deportation action in the Kovno ghetto
Shoes of victims in the Janowska camp were found by Soviet forces after the liberation of Lvov. Janowska, Poland, August 1944.
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Shoes of victims in the Janowska camp
Soon after liberation, a British woman helps a camp survivor try on shoes. Bergen-Belsen, Germany, after May 1945.
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Trying on shoes
A Soviet soldier walks through a mound of victims' shoes piled outside a warehouse in Majdanek soon after the liberation. Majdanek, Poland, August 1944.
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Victims' shoes at Majdanek

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