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“Let them carry you to freedom” – a gift to the Museum from Batsheva Dagan
Former Auschwitz prisoner Batsheva Dagan donated to the Auschwitz Museum Collections a unique personal item – a pair of tiny shoes made in the camp by her fellow inmate.
She recalls this event as follows: ‘A Jewish woman from Germany with Semitic appearance was with me. She had dark complexion and sad eyes. She was the wife of a policeman, a German in Berlin, and had a little daughter. The daughter stayed with her husband, and she was deported. She was sad and she was talking about her daughter, how she missed her, and was thinking if she would ever leave this place. And she made me a surprise. She made these tiny shoes for me. She said: «Let them carry you to freedom»’, said Dagan.
‘And how did she make them? She found a piece of thin leather, somebody gave her a needle and she also had some thread – I don’t know where it came from – and that’s how she was doing it. And she made these shoes’, added former prisoner.
For 20 months, Batsheva Dagan kept the gift, risking her life. ‘I don’t know myself how I managed to keep these shoes. I found a safety pin and during delousing, I used to insert the pin into the straw mattress. When I was coming back from delousing, I kept them in the trousers that I had. This is how they survived Auschwitz’, she said. After the war, in particular in connection with the role that Batsheva Dagan played in the development of education about the Holocaust, different museums and remembrance institutions wanted to include this unique item in their collections. ‘They all wanted to have these tiny shoes, but I said: «it was born in Auschwitz and it has to remain in Auschwitz»’, emphasized the former prisoner.
In Israel, Batsheva Dagan handed the shoes over to Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński, Museum Director. ‘It is a very meaningful donation. I would like these tiny shoes, which according to the intention of their creator carried Batsheva Dagan to freedom, liberate us all from oblivion which makes the understanding of our great responsibility for the future of this world so difficult’, said Museum Director. ‘Together with all other artefacts, these tiny little shoes will be properly cared for by our conservators, they will harmonize with many other objects secretly created in the camp, and their moving history will be thus included in the Memory, which we are constructing at this Memorial Site. Batsheva Dagan is right: this is where they belong’, added Cywiński.
Batsheva Dagan was born on September 8, 1925 in Łódź as Izabella Rubinstein. After the Germans had occupied her hometown, she escaped with her parents and siblings to Radom. In the Radom ghetto, she got involved in the activity of secret youth organization Hashomer Hatzair. On behalf of the organization, she was travelling to the Warsaw ghetto, from where she used to smuggle to Radom the “Pod prąd” (Against the current) newspaper.
In 1942 she ran away from the Radom ghetto and using fake documents reached the territory of Germany. After several months she was arrested and sent to Auschwitz, where she remained until early 1945, when together with other female prisoners she was evacuated to Ravensbrück and then to Malchow. On May 2, 1945 she was liberated by the British army. After the liberation she moved to Palestine, where together with her husband Paul she adopted the surname Dagan.
She worked as a kindergarten teacher, then a psychologist and professor at the teacher’s seminar. The creation of philosophy and unique on a global scale psychological and pedagogical method helping in teaching children and teenagers about Shoah constitutes her great professional achievement. Batsheva Dagan is the author of numerous publications for children and teenagers used in teaching about the Holocaust.
‘I used to work as a kindergarten teacher. In Israel the summer is long and for most of the year it is enough to wear short sleeves. My pupils would ask me about the number I had on my arm. I was wondering how I could explain it to them. I had to do it in a very simple way’, said Batsheva Dagan.
‘The question about the number was coming back again and again. For some time, I worked in England in the Jewish Progressive Organization as an advisor. My job was to support the process of teaching children about Shoah. We were discussing the question how to teach them. At that time, I wrote my first short story entitled What happened during Shoah. Rhymed story for children who would like to know. In the subtitle I wanted to emphasize that we should not force the children, that if they want to know, this little book will help them understand what had happened’, the writer added.
The Auschwitz Museum published her book of poems entitled “Błogosławiona bądź wyobraźnio – przeklęta bądź!” (Imagination: Be Blessed – Be Cursed!) as well as two books for children about the Holocaust “Czika, piesek w getcie” (Czika, a dog in the ghetto) and “Gdyby gwiazdy mogły mówić” (If the stars could talk).
