THOSE tiny feet. Broken hearts and bones. Malnourished bodies and tortured minds. Abuse beyond belief.
As I walk through the Children’s Memorial in the Sydney Jewish Museum, a sculpture of children’s shoes brings me to a jarring halt.
How could anyone be so cruel to a child? How could government and army officials plot the destruction of an entire race?
As a father, photos of just a fraction of the 1.5 million children lost in the Nazi holocaust scream out at me.
Girls with blue eyes and blonde hair, sad-looking brown-eyed boys.
There’s a sculpture filled with water – 1.5 million drops for each one of them lost.
On the wall, Treblinka (an extermination camp) survivor Yankel Wiernik’s words are powerfully poignant.
“All through that winter small children, stark naked and barefooted, had to stand out in the open for hours on end, awaiting their turn in the increasingly busy gas chambers.
Read the full article by Mark Furler at the Dalby Herald.