Answer to Question #267409 in History for Kelsey Jand

Question

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Question: What is the symbolism of this piece?

Answer 1

Symbolism is the literary characteristic employed throughout the poem. When the shoes speak as if they are humans, as in the concluding sentence "Each of us avoided the Hellfire," figurative language is used. The poem's shoes serve as a metaphor for symbolism. The shoes reflect the tens of thousands of Jews who perished in concentration camps. Furthermore, anthropomorphism is evident throughout the poem, as it implies that thousands of people were slain by depicting the human aspect of shoes. There is also a recurrence of "We are," as seen in the opening two lines. "We Are the Shoes, The Last Witnesses," written by Moshe Szulsztein during the Holocaust, was written during the genocide. The poem's core theme is that thousands of people were slain during the genocide, and the only thing left were their shoes. The poem captures the mood of the day, which was mostly anti-Semitism. Furthermore, the poem has had an impact not only on the literary history, but also on events surrounding WWII.