This pair of poorly laced, worn shoes impaled on monumental nails must be symbolic of something. Does the lone figure behind them holding a hammer and unemotionally staring forward with only one eye visible contribute to a more complete understanding?
On a basic level, shoes are needed for safe successful travel and in some situations, even for survival. These shoes are going nowhere! Do they belong to the person holding the hammer and is he now barefoot and vulnerable? Is he hoping to use the hammer to liberate his shoes? Or is the figure responsible for acquiring, seizing, or looting these shoes and skewering them with the monumental nails? Is he a perpetrator, a crucifier? The enigmatic expressionless face is of little help in discerning the true character of our figure. The hiding of one eye behind the heel of a shoe enhances the interpretive tension.
Destruction of the shoes is in evidence before us. However, during troubled times in the immediate moment, it may be difficult to know who are friends and who are foes, who will be the assassins and who will be the victims. The life of a Jew hiding during the Holocaust must have been one of constant tension, constant terror. Each day was a series of “now what” moments.
Dr. Carl M. Herbert (Guest Writer)
BAK a Day, November 10, 2023
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