In the spring of 2023, the conservation laboratory at the Auschwitz Museum began the arduous process of preserving 8,000 children’s shoes currently part of the exhibit. The remnants of genocide, from brittle paper records to decomposing celluloid film, to shoes and rags, to teeth, dentures, and human hair, are slowly but steadily eviscerated by the passing of time. In 2015, a metal conservationist cleaned all the eyeglasses on display at the Auschwitz Museum to slow down inevitable corrosion. At the same time, the museum resolved not to preserve or burry the hair on display, as it was impossible to establish if the owners had been murdered or survived. Eventually, the museum reached the decision to leave the hair be, to let it decay in its vitrine.
Eyeglasses of murdered prisoners discovered at Auschwitz post liberation
© United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Philip Vock
When the Soviet Army liberated Auschwitz in January of 1945, they foun...
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