Day 13 / Yom HaShoah

A VOGN SHIKH (A Cartload of Shoes)
Avrom Sutzkever, Vilna Ghetto, January 1, 1943

The wheels roll on, roll on,
What do they bring?
they bring me a wagon
with flopping shoes.

The wagon, like a khupa
In the dusk of evening;
The big pile of shoes
Like a dancing throng.

A holiday, a wedding . . .?
Who has blinded me?
The shoes . . .
now I see what they are.

The soles klop out a rhythm:
Whither? whither? whither?
From the streets of old Vilna
They drive us to Berlin.

I must not ask "whose,"
but there is a tear in my heart.
Tell me the truth, shoes:
Where are the feet?

The feet from each pair
With buttons like dewdrops.
Here--where is the little body?
There--where is the woman?

With all the children's shoes
why do I see no children?
Why isn't the bride wearing
those sandals now?

Through children's shoes and scraps,
I recognize my mama's shoes!
The slippers she would put on
Just for Shabbes.

The soles klop out a rhythm:
Whither? whither? whither?
From the streets of old Vilna
They drive us to Berlin.

You can also hear Sutzkever himself read the poem in Yiddish; look for the Yiddish transliteration in the comment section below the video.


***

We are the shoes, we are the last witnesses.
We are shoes from grandchildren and grandfathers,
From Prague, Paris and Amsterdam,
And because we are only made of stuff and leather
And not of blood and flesh, 

each one of us avoided the hellfire.

Morris Shulstein