Shoes

It was the shoes that did it for me. The leather shoes and boots and sandals; especially the cute little, tiny little children’s shoes.

Most of them were piled up at the back of the display cabinet, a few single items of footwear lying further forward, seemingly abandoned.

I don't know who those shoes belonged to. Maybe some of the men, women, and children who gazed down on me from the black and white photographs on the wall. All long dead now.

If you ever visit the Auschwitz Concentration Camp museum, maybe you will gaze into the selfsame display cabinets. Of all the horrors I saw and heard of during my visit in June 2019, it was the shoes that broke my heart.

I felt despondent as I left Auschwitz that day. I felt that I wanted to change the world. But I didn't know how. I still don't know how. But I've come to realise that all human beings are 99.9% the same. Maybe, just maybe, we could look to the things that make us the same rather than the things that divide us. Maybe just maybe, the world might be a slightly better place tomorrow.

THE LIBERATION OF AUSCHWITZ TOOK PLACE ON 27 JANUARY 1945.

My Midsummer Night’s Dream SUP tour through Northern Europe in 2019 took me within a few miles of Auschwitz. It somehow seemed appropriate that I should visit.

Hundreds of thousands of victims never got to leave the camp, not alive anyway. It made me thank my good fortune to live in more peaceful times and in a safe part of the world. I was on my way to stand-up paddle in Prague.

We should never forget how lucky we are.

We should never forget those who lost their lives in the Holocaust.

A sign on display at Auschwitz