A/N: This chapter has little to do with the overall plot, and has no direct time at which it takes places, it is just another glimpse at Germany's psyche as the Holocaust progresses.
Warning: Heavy Holocaust references and situations. Anti!Hitler and Anti!Nazi Germany. Don't like, don't read. I, in no way, shape or form mean to offend anyone at all, so please do not take this personally or be offended by it.
They are all gray.
A dull, banal, unassuming color that made one's eyes swim to look at for too long and sets up a nice ache behind your eyes.
They seemed to be all about the same size too, after sorting the hundredth and thirty-seventh.
Same color, same size, same brand, same make.
Dasselbe, dasselbe, dasselbe.
Same smell too.
Like leather, so overpowering in that dusty, muggy hot room that it made you dizzy when you inhaled, the scent whirling about you.
(They don't make them quite like that anymore, do they now? Jetzt nicht mehr.)
Overpowering you.
A scent of leather, and blood, and dust, and dirt, and fear, and loneliness.
Ja, ziemlich viel Einsamkeit unter diesen Schuhen.
But, but- there's a white one now.
And look! That one has a speck of pink about it, the other one a fine black bow with lace about its edges, a green one and brown with a nice lengthy heel and another one- a gentlemen's shoe! Shoes for everything and anything: school, working, parties, family dinners, weddings and funerals.
Viele, viele Beerdigungen.
But they are all gray now.
Dasselbe, dasselbe, dasselbe.
(They'd like you to think that, wouldn't they? That you are all the same; alles nur Schafe zur Schlachtbank geführt.)
Sometimes, but only sometimes when the sun's hanging long and that heady scent of leather (Schmutz, Blut, Staub, Alter, Verfall, Tod.) has really gotten to him, does he let himself go.
Does he picture the smooth, delicate heel that once slid slick like honey into that creamy heeled shoe, with a cinnamon curled bow and yellow lining.
Oh, how she danced-
He can see it now; her twirling about like ball in roulette, spinning, spinning, spinning without a care in the world to stop her or a mind half spent on the days of tomorrow and her future ahead. Her favorite dish was Lecsó made by her mother and her mother before her, he was sure- and her favorite drink was Pharisäer, slick, bitter and sweet at the same time.
Ah, so that shoe must have been her kid sister's! Stubby little things, white with a little pink bow. Always bugging her sister about, with thick brown curls and dancing eyes, oh, how she must have been green with envy when her sister was let out to go dancing with her beau, while she had to stay at home and work on her D'var Torah like a good girl while her doting father watched on over her, so proud of his beautiful girls.
What fine shoes he wore too! Dark leather, with sturdy soles for work and walking, how that man knew so well about people and the world they live in, counting that every part of himself, from his dark hair that he shared with his eldest to his sharply trimmed beard to his pressed shirt against his slightly, he would plead, round stomach, made an impression from the first glance.
(But to them it doesn't really matter what you wear, does it? Certainly what you look like, but really, it came down to the thick blood coursing through your veins. Nicht, dass man nichts dagegen tun, oder?)
Some times all three would dance together, laughing and stumbling about in their mockery, their mother no longer with them from the whispering flu that blew by, but still standing, still breathing, still taking in the simple joy of tripping over one's carpet in an attempt at one of those crazy American dance moves.
(But for how long?)
Tanzen, spinning, lachen, smiling, auslösung, falling, falling, falling.
(Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posie. Ashes, ashes, we all fall down!)
They are all gray, now.
They all smell of leather, now.
They are gone, now.
(But not really, that's just what they want you to think.)
No more dancing, laughing, practicing for adulthood, or smiling, now.
Just sorting, now.
Frauen Schuh.
Schwarz Tonne.
Männer Schuh.
Graue Tonne.
Frauen Schuh.
Schwarz Tonne.
Frauen Schuh.
Schwarz Tonne.
Männer Schuh.
Graue Tonne.
There was only one shoe with edges of green and a sole of gold.
Frauen Schuh.
Schwarz Tonne.
Männer Schuh.
Graue Tonne.
Männer Schuh.
Graue Tonne.
Only one shoe with silver plated tassels and twirled MC on the flat of it.
Männer Schuh.
Graue Tonne.
Männer Schuh.
Graue Tonne.
Männer Schuh.
Graue Tonne.
Only one thick boot, made for wearing through thick snow and deep slush.
Frauen Schuh.
Schwarz Tonne.
Männer Schuh.
Graue Tonne.
Frauen Schuh.
Schwarz Tonne.
Only one tiny boot, fit for a foot as long a daisy's petal and as soft as a chick's down.
As leather caresses the foot of the wearer, an imprint is there to last forever, no matter the fate of the wearer.
We wear them, and they wear us.
There are no duplicates.
There are no pairs.
He will find no copies in his ever-growing mountain of remnants of the dead and dying.
Germany will find no shoe the same as any other.
Nor will any nation or any man.
Linke, Rechte.
But no duplicates.
There are no duplicates, there are no copies, no "same" in a holocaust.
Nor will there ever be.
Wir sind die Schuhe. Wir sind die letzten Zeugen
We are the shoes. We are the last witnesses
Wir sind die Schuhe von Enkeln und Großeltern
We are the shoes of grandchildren and grandparents
Von Prag nach Paris und Amsterdam
From Prague to Paris and Amsterdam
Denn wir sind aus Leder
Because we are made of leather
Und zwar nicht aus Fleisch und Blut
And not of flesh and blood
Jeder von uns vermied das Höllenfeuer.
Each of us avoided the hellfire.
- Von Moses Schulstein, Überlebender des Holocuast.
Notes/Translations:
1. "Dasselbe, dasselbe, dasselbe."
Same, same, same.
2. " Jetzt nicht mehr."
Not anymore.
3. "Ja, ziemlich viel Einsamkeit unter diesen Schuhen."
Yes, quite a lot of loneliness among these shoes.
4. "Viele, viele Beerdigungen."
Many, many funerals.
5. "alles nur Schafe zur Schlachtbank geführt."
all just sheep led to slaughter.
6. "Schmutz, Blut, Staub, Alter, Verfall, Tod."
Dirt, blood, dust, age, decay, death.
7. "Lecsó"
A mixed vegetable stew, a Hungarian Ratatouille.
8. "Pharisäer"
A German drink that is half coffee half rum with whipped creme, created in the late 1800s.
9. "D'var Torah"
A part of a Bat Mitzva (a coming of age ceremony for a Jewish girl.)
10."Nicht, dass man nichts dagegen tun, oder?"
Not that you could do anything about that, could you?
11. "Tanzen, spinning, lachen, smiling, auslösung, falling, falling, falling."
Dancing, spinning, laughing, smiling, tripping, falling, falling, falling.
13. "Frauen Schuh. Schwarz Tonne. Männer Schuh. Graue Tonne."
Women's shoe. Gray bin. Men's shoe. Back bin.
14."He will find no pairs in his ever-growing mountain of remnants of the dead and dying."
Reference to Moses Schulstein's poem in which he describes the pile of shoes of Holocaust victims as a mountain.
15. Linke, Rechte.
Lefts, rights.
15. "Wir sind die Schuhe... Von Moses Schulstein, Überlebender des Holocuast. "
Moses Schulstein was a Yiddish poet. This poem appears on the wall above the room of shoes in the Washington, DC Holocaust Museum.
16. Unseen but not Unfelt
Dark Matter is invisible, and is the addition to gravity that holds the universe together at the seams. Seams are made of tiny thousands upon thousands upon thousands of tiny little stitches, each made their own. If you pull out the stitches, the universe falls to pieces, and what are we left with? If you pluck out lives by the thousands, ripping out stitches and carving out seams, you can expect nothing more than the world to crash and burn.
A/N2: This little thing was written in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. in the Shoe Room, a room entirely filled with shoes of Holocaust victims. I stood in the middle of that room for well over an hour, scribbling this down and inhaling that dizzying scent of leather. While I was there, I was approached by one of the security guards, and after commenting on how diligent I was, she said this: "I love that smell, the smell of leather. They don't make shoes like that anymore- the leather we have now is supple, and you fit right into it. Back then, they were stiff and well made. I mean, you can look at the heels and see all of the fine stitching. But y'know what gets me? Little shoes like those. Little ones, for a toddler or maybe a big baby. A baby or a little kid- the purest things you could get on this earth. They didn't do anything wrong." After finishing her moving words, she was called away and as she left, I called a quick thank you. She shrugged and said 'you're welcome' as if she said such things everyday. I hope so hard that she does, because everyone needs to hear what she says. I thought that I would never see her again, but of course, a little over 5 minutes later, as I entered the remembrance hall, where the eternal flame flickers, I see her. She smiles at me and says: "You don't have to write now, you can take pictures." I told her that I didn't have a camera. She chuckled.
"It smells like fire now. Not like burning flesh or of burning bone. No dying villages or destruction. It just smells like fire. Like smoke and wax, and faintly of something floral. Lavender, maybe. A bit of stone too. Reminds me of home, really. Like meals on the deck; like food, family and happiness. It smells like home." What I wrote in response to the flickering candles in the Remembrance Hall.