Photographs: Marek Lach
the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation has decided to initiate this unique campaign to secure funding for the conservation process of all the children’ shoes that the Museum takes care of. I would like to thank the Foundation donors and in particular the International March of the Living for their partnership – they have been marching for over 30 years to remember the victims that were murdered in the concentration camps,’ said Wojciech Soczewica, director general of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation.
The project to conserve the children's shoes at the Auschwitz Museum Conservation Laboratories is planned to last approximately two years.
‘The conservation of the entire collection of children's shoes will be a multi-stage undertaking. Each object of this large group will be treated on a case-by-case basis. Although they belong to the same group of objects and share a common part of history, they each have individual characteristics, constructed from similar materials but with distinct details that are significant in the conservation process. Each of these objects is unique because it contains traces of another person's life. Therefore, the conservation of these objects cannot be approached collectively, repetitively and mechanically,’ said Nel Jastrzębiowska of the Museum's Conservation Laboratories.
It is estimated, basing on the approximate data, that over 232,000 children and young people were deported to the German Nazi camp Auschwitz, of whom 216,000 were Jews, 11,000 Roma, about 3,000 Poles, more than 1,000 Belarusians, and several hundred Russians, Ukrainians, and others. A total of about 23,000 children and young people were registered in the camp. Slightly more than 700 were liberated on the territory of Auschwitz in January 1945.