Shoes

My experience at the Holocaust Museum was unforgettable. There were so many moments there that made me furious but at the same time made me cry.  The one moment that really stood out were the shoes. The shoes of all the lost souls that were forgotten.  The shoes reminded me of something evil that had taken place, the killing of their owners. The shoes reminded me of something that might have been happy once a long, long time ago. There were so many shoes you couldn't of counted all of them, all different too, no pair the same.  Just like the personalities of the living people who once wore these shoes. Their owners. They all had different stories, they were all different living and breathing people just the same as us.  And yet separated, isolated, terrorized just like Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel was in Auschwitz concentration camp.  Elie wrote, “Would you like to get into a good Kommando?  Of course. But on one condition: I want to stay with my father. All right, he said. I can arrange it. For a pittance: your shoes.  I'll give you another pair. I refused to give my shoes. They were all I had left.” (48).  Although shoes don't seem like much as Elie Wiesel says, they were all he really had left, not wanting to let go of a past life that he will never have again.