Shoemaker’s Farewell
From the collection of the National Monument Camp Vught
h 15 cm x w 54 cm
1943
The everyday life of the Jewish Gold family, who lived in the village of Jutphaas near Utrecht, came to an abrupt end in April 1943: Father, Mother and their son Lothar were picked up from their home and eventually deported. They always had close contact with the neighbours across the street, the Steenaart family.
Father Julius Gold was a shoemaker and the night before leaving he promised that when he returned he would make baby Willy Steenaart a pair of shoes. Along with this promise Julius gave the Steenaart family his shoemaker’s box, filled with tools, for safekeeping. The farewell words to the Gold family were those of a neighbourhood kid shouting ‘Where are you going, Lothar?’ to his friend, as the family was driven away by truck. The Steenaarts never received another sign of life from Julius Gold and his family. Later, Willy Steenaart took good care of the box: not a single tool was ever used. Lothar was murdered in the Sobibor Extermination Camp on 11 June 1943 along with his mother Gerda. Julius died on 21 March 1945 in Melk, a slave labour sub-camp of Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Austria. It is not known whether there are still relatives of the Gold family alive.