Mysterious Scribbles in Auschwitz Child's Shoes Unveiled After Decades
“From surviving documents, it follows that the mother and her son were deported to Auschwitz in the same transport… It is likely that they were both murdered in the gas chamber after selection. We may presume that she was most likely the one who ensured that her child’s shoe was signed,” a statement by the Memorial and Museum explained.
Daniel BRIOT/FlickrThe train tracks that lead into Auschwitz.
Auschwitz-Birkenau was made operational in 1940 and was essentially a complex of concentration camps, where Birkenau served as its primary extermination center. It is sometimes referred to as Auschwitz II.
More than 1 million men, women, and children were murdered here. Six-year-old Steinberg’s unspeakable end began with his incarceration in the Theresienstadt Ghetto on August 10, 1942. Steinberg’s father was separated from them and was transferred from Auschwitz to Dachau in 1944.
According to Hanna Kubike from the Auschwitz Museum Collections, Steinberg’s father lived to hear of his son’s death, as he was liberated from the Kaufering sub-camp.
Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-BirkenauAnother shoe yielded numerous documents, which included the names Ackermann, Brávermann, and Beinhorn.
Along with Steinberg’s pair, another couple of shoes were found that contained documents written in Hungarian. Experts currently believe that these belonged to inmates who previously lived in Budapest as well as the city of Munkács in modern-day Ukraine.
“We already have shoes with such findings in our collections, but these are mainly newspapers, which were often used as insoles or additional insulation,” said Kubik. “This find is precious and interesting because the documents have been preserved in good condition and they contain dates, names of the persons concerned and handwritten captions. They date back to 1941 and 1942.”
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