Of all the conversations that I had with people on the Maurer Koach trip, one thing that always came up was my dog – Poppy. So why did I find myself talking about my dog to anyone who would listen? It’s because she’s a naughty dog, and I’m an inexperienced international traveler. 

I was so excited to return from this adventure with gifts and goodies that I wasn’t thinking clearly when I was packing. I wanted to ensure I had plenty of room in my luggage for tchotchkes from Poland and Budapest. I remember the exact moment that I made my big mistake. I was holding a second pair of cute, comfortable walking shoes. “Do I need this second pair of shoes?” I asked myself. “No, of course not! What could possibly happen to the perfectly good pair you’ll be wearing when you step out the door? Leave those at home. You won’t need them!” 

Now, at this point, it seems like a good time to mention a bad habit of Poppy’s. When her anxiety gets the better of her, she likes to steal the insoles out of shoes, particularly my shoes. It’s not usually an issue. You find the insole and then stick it back in the shoe. Maybe it was the chaos of that morning that upset her, or maybe she saw my suitcases and panicked. The insoles would not come out willingly, so all she managed to do was rip two nickel-sized chunks out of them. Thinking back, I guess I noticed it, but I didn’t know it would be a problem. Spoiler alert: I was wrong. 

Walking through the Indy airport and LaGuardia, things seemed okay. But somewhere in Amsterdam’s airport, it became abundantly clear that they would not continue to be okay. Our group was speed-walking their way through concourses. These two bits of missing foam were starting to hurt my feet – and we hadn’t even made it to “day one” on our itinerary. 

I want to think that I’m not a big complainer. I figured I could pick up another pair of shoes during our free time. Free time didn’t happen until 9 pm our first evening in Krakow. We had spent the entire day on a walking tour of the city. After being up for more than 24 hours and logging over 25,000 steps, I was exhausted. A quick glance at my phone confirmed that most stores in Krakow were already closed. “No worries,” I convinced myself, “It’s not a problem. I’ll figure it out tomorrow.” 

The next day, it turned out, was Poland’s Independence Day. And much like the Fourth of July, most stores close in observance of the holiday. So, my plans were foiled once again. We set off early in the morning for Wavell Hill, a steep climb to the castle and cathedral of Polish King Kazimir. The walking tour continued through the historic district. Fortunately, and unfortunately, it was also the day we got to tour Poland’s famous salt mines. There, we walked down 600 wooden stairs down to an absolute labyrinth of corridors carved entirely of salt. Each stair and every step hurt. 

By evening, my feet were screaming. Friday’s step count was up to 18,000. I wasn’t about to let my shoes ruin this trip for me. I pushed on. We walked the streets of Krakow, took a million photos, and had a lovely dinner. I trudged along for as long as I could, but eventually, I had to call it a night. 

I turned in early, soaked my feet in the hotel tub, and discovered two large blisters. I didn’t know what to do. Tomorrow was our walking tour of the sprawling Auschwitz Birkenau Concentration Camp. How on earth could I continue like this for another 6 days? There had to be something in my room that would work to mend those two little holes. Toilet paper? Tissues? No, and no. 

And then I saw them. The complimentary pair of slippers the hotel had supplied. I shoved one into my shoes, and surprisingly, it fit! But the top of the slipper had to go. I suppose I could have called the hotel lobby and requested a pair of scissors, but I was unwilling to involve anyone else in this mess that I’d gotten myself in. Another search of the room, and this time, I found a corkscrew with a little serrated foil cutter attached. I am so glad my roommate had decided to stay out and did not witness me hacking at these innocent fluffy slippers with my improvised hotel shank. But it worked. I had a new pair of Radisson insoles. 

We left the hotel early in the morning. This part of the journey had filled me with trepidation for months. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to see first-hand evidence of the atrocities that had occurred at this extermination camp. The ground was uneven, wet, and covered in large, jagged stones that bit into my already tender feet. Every step through the camp was painful, mentally, spiritually, and thanks to my dog physically. I hadn’t complained to my travel companions because, how could I? How could I talk about my pain while walking past a display of tens of thousands of stolen shoes? If a prisoner here were lucky, they had oversized boots, with no laces and a few holes. If they were unlucky, and many of them were, they had no shoes at all. 

Tikkun Olam, the Jewish concept of healing the world, happens in curious places. At the end of the day, it was pretty apparent that I was in a sour mood – and not just from the camp. My traveling companions asked me if I was alright. I was not, but then again, none of us were. I mentioned that my feet hurt (they were throbbing) and then proceeded to regale them with the tale of last night’s foray into DIY cobbling – hoping to add a little levity to an otherwise dismal day. The shock on their collective faces was not exactly what I expected after telling my story. “You did what?!” “Oh, it’s okay. They throw those slippers out anyhow,” I tried to explain, hoping this would all blow over. It did not blow over. Never has a group rallied so quickly to solve a foot-related problem. I tried to dismiss their concerns, “My feet are pretty big, no one has an extra pair of size 11 shoes in Poland!” I was wrong. My new friend and fellow cohort member Ashely had two extra pairs. (She is a much more competent packer.)

I tell you all of this because I truly felt this trip through my feet. I had a tiny glimpse of what it must have been like to walk a mile, or several, in the shoes of our forebearers. I toured our second camp, Majdanek in borrowed footwear. This camp, like Auschwitz, had a massive display of stolen shoes as well. There were over eleven hundred concentration camps scattered throughout Europe. I wonder if they all had this same mountain of shoes. 

Eventually, and thankfully, I found a pair of boots at a small shop across the street from our hotel in Warsaw. They were an improvement, but the doggie-mangled insoles had left their mark. The blisters had already formed. Every step was still painful. But the new boots kept my poor feet from worsening and let me give the loaners back to my friends. We traveled from Poland to Budapest. In my new kicks, we ironically visited the Shoes on the Danube, a tragic memorial trail of iron footwear that stands as a monument to the thousands executed along that riverbank during WWII. It’s a strange feeling to have your feet finally at ease in the same place where others were forced to abandon their comfortable footwear before being shot and cast into the frigid water below. 

At the end of the trip, I left my old shoes in the hotel wastebasket. I’d be darned if I were going to let those cursed sneakers take up one iota of space in my luggage. In the end, I accomplished my goal. There was plenty of room to bring back gifts and memories. I also brought home sore feet, of course. But more than that. I brought home a deep understanding of what happened to my children’s great, great, grandparents, of what walking in their shoes might have felt like, if only for a moment. And of the blisters that hate rub onto our collective souls. 

May we all have the opportunity to walk in the path of our ancestors and forge new, if somewhat painful steps into a better future. Never again is not just a lesson learned. 

Never again is now.