Crowdfunding campaign to fund preservation of Auschwitz children's shoes

In order to begin the conservation of 8,000 children's shoes – children who were, for the most part, murdered in the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz – within the next few weeks, a further $180,000 needs to be raised, the International March of the Living announced, in partnership with the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation and the Auschwitz Memorial.

The crowdfunding campaign was launched in September 2022 by the three organizations to raise funds with the goal of preserving the shoes. Those who have visited the murder site have seen the famed display of shoes, piled up in a heap, of the people later killed in the mass genocide.

However, these shoes face threat now even though they are crucial in preserving the memory of those who perished. The Auschwitz Foundation announced that, without immediate conservation, these shoes are in danger of disappearing as historic documentation of life and death.

The renewed fervor surrounding the campaign awoke right on time, marking the 78th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and International Holocaust Memorial Day.

What has the campaign accomplished so far?

The campaign, titled "From SOUL to SOLE," has so far raised more than half of the estimated funds needed for the preservation – about $500,000 – including an initial contribution from Eitan Neishlos, founder and President of the Neishlos Foundation, and the grandson of Holocaust survivors.

Also contributing to the funds have been thousands of people across the world – members of the public, Jews and non-Jews – who have contributed to the project through the website, available here.

Many of those who have donated have done so in memory of a victim of the Holocaust, or in the names of their own children to help educate the next generation about the crimes of the Holocaust.

"The conservators of the Museum will be able to begin their work in the coming weeks after all the funds have been raised," said Wojciech Soczewica, Director General of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation. "The work on preserving the children's shoes will last for two years, but our work of preserving the testimonies and the evidence of the Nazi-Germany crimes will continue forever."

A Holocaust survivor speaks up

Holocaust survivor Naftali Furst, speaking last week at the Conservation Laboratories set up at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, said that he is "alive thanks to my shoes, which I succeeded in maintaining while at Auschwitz. Without them, I wouldn't have survived the Death March."

The Conservation Laboratories was set up to conserve all surviving historical objects, including the shoes that belonged to children deported to the camp.

"I went to Auschwitz together with my family from a prison camp in Slovakia (Sered) towards the end of the war, in November 1944, when I was 12 years old," Furst said. "The Death March was the hardest thing for us. We marched through hell, we walked for three days in the freezing cold, without food, without being able to stop, seeing the so many who could not continue to march and died near us until we reached an open train in the snow, which took us on the days long, freezing cold journey to Buchenwald."

He concluded, "Preserving the shoes of children who were murdered during the Holocaust is holy work. I am so moved to be here and to see how the work is being done, and I think about my family that was murdered – their shoes could be here."

When the International March of the Living heard of the need to preserve the shoes of children who were murdered at Auschwitz, "it was clear that we had a one-time opportunity to preserve this tangible evidence of Nazi crimes, and to increase awareness of the cruel murder of children during the Holocaust," said the organization's deputy CEO Revital Yakin Krakovsky.

If you wish to support the Soul to Sole campaign, click here.