Shoes of War

During World War II, one pair of shoes bind three disparate men in extraordinary ways. Omer Loeb never imagined he would be forced at gunpoint to leave Szczecin, Poland, where he and his family were born and raised. Their sole crime: being Jewish. Facing starvation and illness as they travel to the Warsaw Ghetto via cattle car, Omer’s only hope for salvation is through his trade as a cobbler of shoes. At the same time, Hezekiah Feinberg finds himself on a similar grief-stricken path that leads him and his thirteen-year-old son straight to Tarnow Prison as political prisoners on charges of treason. His most valuable possession is the shoes he purchased from Omer before his world turned upside down. Through a twisting series of events, those same shoes find their way onto the unlikely feet of a Nazi soldier, Walter “Squirt” Gerlach. Unwillingly drafted into the German army, Squirt is sympathetic to the plight of the Jews and tries to do the right thing by performing small acts for a resistance group. This only leads to trouble for Squirt, who finds himself fighting to survive, despite, or perhaps because of, his Aryan privilege.

Shoes of War is currently looking for representation. Please contact me at heidi@heidicookauthor.com if you believe your agency would be interested in learning more.

SHOES OF WAR is a three-part historical novel of 106,000 words. Each story acts as its own vignette, linked by a single pair of shoes. Comparable titles include The Nightingale by Kristen Hannah and The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris.