GENIE: Tiny blue shoe

This weekend was a busy one. Saturday we made a trek to Quedlinburg and Thale. Quedlinburg was a lovely little city that contained a castle and some ancient and beautiful buildings.

(The Brewery in Quedlinburg)

I enjoyed lying in the grass of the garden outside the castle and relaxing. After lunch there (and me purchasing a shotglass) we continued on to Thale. Here we took a Gondola up the mountain to the Witches Circle; an area where the witches would allegedly travel to copulate with the devil and do other witch-y things, like eat children and sing about bubbles and troubles.

It was lovely up there. The view of the city was fantastic. They had a bobsled ride that we all tried. It was so fun! We were hauling down the mountain for a good part, but I had some loser slow German man in front of me that borderline ruined the ride. Shade L. Right after we finished the bobsled ride it began to rain, and we realized we only had about 20 minutes to get down the mountain back to the train station! We booked it down that mountain, all getting soaked, and had to sprint to the train station. All but four of us made it on the train. The others got lost. They were able to get back to Magdeburg though, so no worries!

Sunday was a different type of day. We travelled to a town about two and a half hours away that contained the Concentration Camp Buchenwald. It was such a sobering experience. Going through the crematorium was the beginning of my feeling of desolation. I read about and saw how the poor Jewish people were treated, and it disturbed me. When I went through the disinfection building, I truly became nauseated. It was the shoes that got to me. They had an artistic representation that consisted of many adult shoes, all word and broken. Dirty. I couldn’t stop staring at one pair of white women’s shoes. It was almost as if I could see her standing there. She should still be alive. Happy. Loved.

After that room there were more shoes. This collection contained something worse though; children’s shoes. There was one, tiny blue shoe. It was so small it could have fit in the palm of my hand and there would have been plenty of room left in my hand. I couldn’t get that blue shoe out of my head. I continued on through the buildings reading and observing. I couldn’t just stop; I felt obligated out of respect to understand what these people had experienced.

There was a quote by a man named Robert Antelme about the SS officers that stopped my heart; “They are quiet; they don’t shout. They inspect the work gang. Gods. Every button on their uniforms, every fingernail shines like a piece of sun. The SS radiates. We are the SS’s plague. We dare not approach the SS, dare not cast our gaze on it. It radiates, it blinds, it reduces to dust.” It is haunting and somehow beautifully poetic, and sends chills throughout my body.

We had the opportunity to view a film about the concentration camp, but I knew I could not handle it emotionally. I was nauseated and on the verge of being sick on my own shoes or crying my soul out. So, Chris and I walked down to the wooded area and explored. It was much needed and relaxing, especially when we crossed the border of the edge of the camp and found a field that overlooked the city below.

It was beautiful. We could see for miles, and it was absolutely what I needed to decompress. For a long while we sat there in silence and it was wonderful to sit and think. I said many prayers that day for the souls of those that experienced the holocaust and concentration camps. I asked God over and over to bring peace to those still living from that time and to forgive those who performed such evils. I hadn’t wanted to leave that field. It was an amazing and beautiful place, but alas, return to Magdeburg is what had to happen.