She Wouldn’t Take Off Her Boots

The Holocaust was unprecedented, total, and systematic genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. Their aim: to annihilate the Jewish people. The primary motivation was the Nazis' antisemitic racist ideology.

During the start of World War II, on September first, nineteen thirty-nine, the Germans implemented a new policy toward the Jews. After the conquest of Poland, the Jews of Eastern Europe were concentrated in ghettos. The Jews of Western Europe were registered and dispossessed of their property. North African Jews faced similar antisemitic racial legislation, and Jews in Southeastern European countries were drafted into forced labor by collaborationist governments. Tens of thousands of Jews perished while in the forced labor camps. There was no escape for those the Nazis deemed unworthy.

Murderers were not content with destroying the communities. They tracked down each hidden Jew and hunted down each fugitive. The crime of being a Jew was so great that every single one had to be put to death. All were meant to suffer and die with no reprieve, no hope, no possible amnesty, nor chance for alleviation. By nineteen forty-five, nearly six million Jews had been murdered.

A civilization that had flourished for close to two thousand years was no more. The survivors, dazed, emaciated, bereaved beyond measure, gathered the remnants of their vitality and the remaining sparks of their humanity and rebuilt. They turned to rebuilding new families forever under the shadow of those absent, new life stories forever warped by the wounds, new communities forever haunted by the loss. World War II transformed the face of Europe and the entire world and resulted in the killing of millions of civilians of different nationalities.

The Righteous Among Nations are non-Jews who took great risks to save Jews during the Holocaust and are honored by Yad Vashem. The Righteous came from different nations, religions, and walks of life. What they had in common was that they protected their Jewish neighbors at a time when hostility and indifference prevailed.

The Righteous showed extraordinary courage during a time when many collaborated with the perpetrators. They saw Jews as human beings in need of help instead of with indifference or hostility. Many felt it was their obligation to help save Jews from certain death. Most rescuers began their journey as bystanders.

Many stood by while Jews were stripped of their rights and their property confiscated. But all found a moment when they could no longer watch and needed to act. For some, it was the moment a Jewish neighbor or friend asked for help. In an instant decision, the bystander was overtaken with the human instinct to help save another.

Small gestures were huge. Some hid someone during a raid, provided shelter for a day until other arrangements could be made, and even hiding someone for months or years. In addition to hiding, two other ways the Righteous helped save Jews were providing false papers and identities and smuggling Jews out to escape.

In Latvia on Monday, Dec. 15, 1941, thousands of Jewish women and children were taken to the women’s prison in Liepāja. From there, in the freezing cold, they were marched to a nearby beach called Skede, forced to strip to their underclothes, taken to the edge of a trench, and shot dead in groups of ten. Many of the victims were photographed in their final moments by a Nazi photographer. One such photograph serves as the basis for the Women of the Shoah monument “She Wouldn’t Take Off Her Boots.”

We see the strength and the humility of generations of Jewish women from Liepaja, moments before they were murdered by Nazis in 1941. They stand in their innocence; their only crime was that they were Jews. The photo I used as a basis for the monument was taken by a Nazi photographer to document the victories of the Nazi regime as propaganda for its German citizens. My hope is that each time one views the monument from that perspective, one becomes witness to exactly the opposite of what the Nazi photographer intended to document.

Standing arm-in-arm are five women in their last act, looking straight at us today, with grace, humanity, and defiance. The older woman, asked to strip, stands in the center with her boots on as she clutches onto the arms of generations of women in her family. The two figures at the end of the grouping bring us physically into the sculpture, revealing an emotional narrative of their impending death. With a snap of the camera, we almost can’t comprehend the innocence that we see. One sees the subtle emotions of fear, disbelief, terror, and even hope. The youngest, with her head bent, clutches her fists, communicating the human horror of the Holocaust and reminding us of the several million children who were exterminated.

I was very influenced by Rodin’s sculpture of “The Burghers of Calais,” where each figure communicates the emotional journey of their impending death. When I first saw the photograph, I saw my sisters, Jewish women, and it changed me forever. You can’t un-see what you have seen.

Victoria Milstein
Monument Artist

Dawn to dusk.

Bellarmine Hall Galleries and Walsh Gallery Hours

Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Thursday until 8 p.m.

We are closed for national and university holidays and during inclement weather.

For GPS please use the following address:

200 Barlow Road, Fairfield, CT, 06824.

Dolan School of Business

Free parking, including handicap parking, is available in front of the Dolan School of Business.

Quick Center

Free parking is available at the lot in front of the Quick Center, including handicap parking. Museum visitors may park in any available spot that is not marked reserved, handicap accessible only, or for service vehicles.

The monument and the museum are open to the public and admission is free.

Take Metro-North, New Haven Line, to Fairfield Station.
Approximately 70 minutes from Grand Central Station.

www.mta.info/mnr

(800) 638-7646