https://i.servimg.com/u/f89/13/69/35/80/shoes11.jpgThis photograph is from a Holocaust Art Exhibit at the University of Florida. It is titled "Memorial Art at Auschwitz--One small section of the "mountain" of shoes on display at the camp." The picture shows an extremely small piece of the wall of shoes that exists. The shoes represent one pair for each person that was murdered at Auschwitz. I chose to use this as my artifact because I think that in some cases photographs are worth more than words. To hear someone speak out the terrible things that occurred during the Holocaust is one thing, but to actually have a visual is something totally different. In some ways it makes it more real...more personal I think.
This photograph imparticular struck me for a couple reasons. One of them was the colors. They are dark and dusty and depressing. Those colors set the mood immediately. They have something ominous about them. Also, I was caught off guard by the way that the shoes manage to take by the entire frame of the photograph. It really portrays the magnitude of the situation.
The last reason I chose to share this was that it is very current. This is part of an exhibit that is going on rigth now. It is also a picture that was taken rather recently. If you look at all those shoes. All those dead people. It is hard to believe that we have allowed it to happen over and over again. Those shoes represented the murdered in the Holocaust, but what represents those lost in the killing fields of Cambodia? Or the victims of the genocide in Darfur?