The Feet That Never Walked in Shoes

by Rebecca Frazer

Thousands and thousands of shoes: some small enough for little girls, some big enough for grown men. Most were dark, giving the mound of shoes a certain eeriness. I stared at the mound blankly for a moment, wondering whose shoes these were and why they had been preserved in a pile at this museum. But all too quickly, my mind began to grasp the piercing truth of what these shoes had in common.

Their owners were murdered together.

I was thirteen when I visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. It was a haunting, life-changing experience, and I can still vaguely picture some of the displays and remember the horror and indignation I felt as I walked through the museum halls. But the display of shoes – thousands of shoes of Jewish people who had been systematically murdered and stripped at a concentration camp in Poland – will always be clear in my memory. One does not forget thousands of shoes that were never worn out by pattering, walking, running feet.

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Rebecca Frazer is a high school student, a pro-life activist, and a Christian. She immensely enjoys writing and speaking, especially on pro-life subjects. She also competes in team policy debate, and current writes for a debate sourcebook company."