Shoes

This short story by Etgar Keret, Shoes, was about  little boy's first real experience learning about the Holocaust. On his class trip to a Holocaust Museum in Israel, he learns how the Nazi Party started in Germany. A Holocaust survivor speaks to them and tells them that them about how he will never forgive Germany for what they did. When he goes home that day, his mom gives him a new pair of Adidas shoes. He knows that these shoes are from Germany. When he wears these shoes he feels as though he is stepping on his grandfather who was killed in the Shoah. Soon, after playing soccer, he forgets he was even wearing those shoes. He forgot just like he learned how people who have gone through terrible things, may not have a good memory. He realizes how important it is to remember what happened.
I connected with this story because sometimes I forget about what happened when I'm distracted from what is important. And although it is okay to be distracted, it is important to remember the Holocaust at all times in the back of my mind. In this way, I, and many others, are like the little boy in this story.
I think Keret was trying to express the basis of contemporary Israeli culture in relation to the Holocaust. Israel as a whole expresses the need to never forget what happened to the Jews during the Holocaust, yet Israel's culture has sine integrated with a Western society, including the source country of the Holocaust. We remember, what happened, but that doesn't mean the kids in Israel don't wear Adidas shoes, and use other German made products.
This a perfect example of Jewish/Israeli literature. It deals with conflicts that Israel and all Jewish people still struggle with: how to remember and to treat the memory of the Holocaust. It deals with Israel and the Jewish people and he relationship they have with other countries. The statement about our struggle in dealing with the memory of the Holocaust is what made this Israeli/Jewish literature.