This is a sepia saturday post.
".............. worked not only in the SS's own workshops and small companies situated in the industry yard next to the camp, but also in various punishment units such as the 'shoe walking unit'.
Here the prisoners were forced to spend their entire day, walking along the shoe-testing tracks, testing shoes for local shoe manufactures. The tracks were built by a research institute with nine types of surfaces.
Each day guards forced prisoners to wear new shoes and march about 40 kilometres over a track of cement, cinders, broken stones, gravel and sand. In 1944 the SS devised a special torture – they made prisoners walk in shoes one or two sizes too small while carrying sacks filled with 20 kilograms of sand"
From:
And After The War?Read About Tesco's Exciting New Footwear Range Here
25 comments:
Nice video. I like embedded videos, so I don't have to see all the hateful comments at YouTube.
Geeze! I had no idea. You have blown me out of the water with this one. Sorry about what your Dad had to go through.
Kathy M.
dang...makes my feet hurt just thinking about it....
Something else I learnt on sepia Saturday; not a pleasant experience for prisoners anywhere.
And if I am not mistaken, that wonderful shoe shop in Haugh Shaw Road will have been demolished to build the King Cross Tesco store.
Walking in shoes that are too small is indeed TORTURE. :(
Humankind seems to have an unlimited ability to come up with ways to torture others. Who would even think of that - making them wear too small shoes?
Very thought-provoking Tony.
I wonder whether they got any useful results from their "testing." Carrying it to such extremes was really sadistic.
A great post on an astonishingly bizarre part of a history that already was unimaginable. I find this disturbing because some person had to dream this up and implement it. And what happened to the shoes? It would almost be worthy of Monty Python if it wasn't true.
The insanity of human beings, supposedly a higher life form, never fails to dumbfound me. I had no idea this sort of nonsense occurred.
that's so sad and so unbelievable. Man's inhumanity to man never ceases to amaze and horrify me.
Nancy
Tony, a sad story about shoes. Humanity has many dark corners. I liked the musical ballad.
Of all tortures, shoe torture is right up there with the worst. Argh.
Well certainly a video to lighten the mood after such a horrible way the world has gone too often....I just shudder hearing of all the tortures, then and even now in other ways (Iraq) ....
Horrific to start with and then the SS ratch it up another degree.
An unimaginable piece of history. Thanks for a post that is truly thought-provoking and a shoe-related song I've never heard before.
I too was repulsed by that report of torture. Can you believe that. I liked that video. Have never seen or heard that song. But it is soothing after the thoughts of the torture racing through my head. Great post.
QMM
K. A. Polzin IS on Facebook.
That makes my heart sick.
What a sad and disturbing thought. I'm so sorry your father went through this.
Yes, a better under-standing. I love that words etymology and the sign on the door makes a great tie-in.... ;)
Meaning and Mirth. Bitter and Sweet. Sort of a snapshot of Life in it's melancholic complexity.
That was certainly a bit of the war I had never heard about.... Very sad and at the same time, interesting, story.
I always find first hand accounts/oral histories very fascinating. They tell you things our history books never ever could, along with an emotion the texts can't even get close to.
love that brick street, hope they didn't have to walk on that...would have hurt like a sonofabitch
I had never heard that form of torture before. Great post!
Oh, that is terrible. I know how hurtful new shoes can be and to be forced walking like that... It is a torture of the worst kind for sure.:(
Hope all is well dear Tony.;)
xoxo
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