Over 3,000 shoes belonging to children murdered at Auschwitz have been meticulously restored and returned to display.

Spearheaded by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation and the International March of the Living, the $500,000 conservation project began in April 2023 to address the corrosion of metal parts and the fragility of the shoes’ leather strands.

“The tragedy of the more than 200,000 children murdered at Auschwitz seems to represent the darkest area of the history of this extermination center. This is where all the innocence, trust, helplessness, and goodness of children are juxtaposed with the ruthlessness of the German Nazi murderers,” Auschwitz Museum Director Piotr Cywiński said.

“This is the apex of crimes of an ideology built on hatred. Very often the only thing left of these children are the shoes. And just as every human step leaves a mark, so these shoes remain today the footprints of child victims.”

While the project has garnered support from thousands of donors worldwide, third-generation Holocaust survivor and philanthropist Eitan Neishlos conveyed the true significance of this important endeavor.

“Preserving the last remaining evidence of the children who were murdered at Auschwitz has even more meaning today, as the Jewish people around the world experience rampant antisemitism. We must all come together to make sure that no one will be able to deny or distort the horrors the Jewish people endured in the Holocaust,” he said.

It’s no secret that global antisemitism has dangerously increased following Hamas’ unprovoked massacre against Israel on October 7. It also didn’t take long after that tragic day for much of the world to abandon Israel and embrace Hamas’ terror campaign. Those little shoes belonging to such innocent victims silently scream that the consequences of antisemitism must never be forgotten.