I Saw a Mountain

I Saw a Mountain

 by Moses Schulstein

I saw a mountain
Higher than Mt. Blanc
And more Holy than the mountain of Sinai,
Not in a dream. It was real.
On this world this mountain stood.
Such a mountain I saw—
of Jewish shoes in Maidanek..
Such a mountain I saw

Hear!  Hear the march.
Hear the shuffle of shoes left behind – that which remained
From small, from large
from each and everyone.
Make way for the rows
for the pairs
for the generations
for the years
The shoe army—it moves and moves.

“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.

We shoes—that used to go strolling
in the market
Or with the bride and groom to the chuppah,
We shoes from simple Jews,
from butchers and carpenters
From crocheted booties of babies
just beginning to walk and go
On happy occasions, weddings and
even until the time of giving birth,
to a dance, to exciting places to life...
Or quietly -  to a funeral
Unceasingly we go. We tramp.
The hangman never had the chance
to snatch us into his sack of loot - 
now we go to him
Let everyone hear the steps
which flow as tears,
The steps that measure out the judgment.”

I saw a mountain
Higher than Mt. Blanc
And more Holy than the mountain of Sinai.

The murder of millions of people in the camps was accompanied by plunder on an unprecedented scale. All of the possessions of victims were exploited, either for the personal enrichment of the perpetrators or for redistribution amongst the German population. When Majdanek concentration camp in Poland was liberated by the Red Army in 1944, thousands of pairs of shoes were discovered, prompting this reflection from the Yiddish poet.  

About the poet:  The author of poetry, stories, and essays, Moses Schulstein. (Mosheh Shulshteyn) (1911-1981)  was born in Koriv (Kurów), Poland. He attended religious elementary school, yeshiva, and a Jewish public school. In 1923 he moved with his parents to Warsaw, and there he worked as a tailor while studying in evening school classes. In 1937 he settled in Paris and performed a variety of different kinds of work. At the time of the German occupation, he hid in a number of cities. He participated in the resistance movement and spent time in a Gestapo jail in Paris. He initially joined the Labor Zionists, later becoming an active Communist. In the late 1950s he left the leftist camp and became ethnically identified. He composed poetry, stories, and literary critical articles.