Arya Pinsker was just a little boy when he arrived at the experimental torture barrack in Auschwitz. His whole family was killed that day, and their remains were turned into the smoke of the Birkenau crematoria. Only his brother survived with him, and he was the one who saved his life. Out of a thousand children who were in that torture barrack, only four survived the experiments. His story was given as testimony at a ceremony held this week in the reconstructed laboratory at the Auschwitz Museum, where an international campaign was launched to preserve and restore 8,000 crumbling shoes of Jewish children who were murdered in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camps during the Holocaust.
About half a million dollars is the estimated cost of the reconstruction project, and it will take about two years. It will begin immediately with the help of the general public, the participants of the March of the Living, and donors, led by Eitan Neishlos. Neishlos is the founder and president of the Neishlos Foundation, a third-generation survivor of the Holocaust, and a strategic partner of the March of the Living who lives in Dubai, and serves as the commemoration's ambassador in the Gulf countries. His initial donation enabled the immediate start of the reconstruction operation.
Neishlos lit the third generation torch at the last march for the Living, holding in his hand the shoe box of his grandmother, the late Tamara Zisserman, which contains her memories from the Holocaust.
From SOUL to SOLE: Urgent preservation of the children’s shoes at Auschwitzhttps://t.co/uP3CQOm2KO
— Ynetnews (@ynetnews) September 22, 2022
(Photo: Tali Natapov/Neishlos Foundation) pic.twitter.com/p3cp9noPh0
Holocaust survivor Miriam Harel, who was a toddler in the ghetto and a girl in the camp, explained how she came to Auschwitz towards the end of the war. "It was in 1944. To this day, when I close my eyes, I see the 'Blood Road' in Auschwitz. We were forced to run barefoot on a seven-meter road covered in broken glass - holding our shoes in our hands. Whoever made a sound was shot dead on the spot. Although I felt The glass stabbing my feet, I didn't say anything. We did everything to live."
A ceremony for the launch of the shoe campaign was attended by Holocaust survivors Aryeh Pinsker and Bogdan Milošević, both of whom were children when they arrived at the camp. Also in attendance was The director general of the Auschwitz Foundation, Witzek Socevica, the director general of the Auschwitz Museum, Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński, the president of the World March of the living, Phyllis Greenberg Heidemann, and the president The Neishlos Foundation, Eitan Neishlos. In his speech, Neishlos called upon the “young people around the world to contribute to the preservation of shoes and perpetuate history - now is our time"
“Death begins with the shoes: for most of us, they prove to be instruments of torture, which after a few hours of marching cause painful sores that become fatally infected"
— Auschwitz Exhibition (@auschwitzxhibit) September 14, 2022
—Primo Levi, Holocaust survivor pic.twitter.com/sDjKJRX3j3
"The tiny shoes left in Auschwitz are all that remains of the Jewish children who were murdered by the Nazis," he added. "These are the shoes in which they took their last steps to their death in the gas chambers. By preserving these shoes, we are preserving the memory of the children. As a third generation member of the Holocaust, it is our responsibility to keep their memories alive."
