Yesterday was Holocaust Memorial Day. I heard a Polish survivor talking on the radio. She was only six years old when her mother was executed. That bleak day in 1943, the children were spared. This heart-rending radio story inspired my poem.
They gathered by the wire
Breath rising in vaporous wreaths
As sheep before an abattoir.
It was a bitter morning.
She stood at the wooden door
Of Hütte acht, clutching a mousey blanket -
Trembling, wondering why
She could not catch her mother’s eye.
Just then guns crackled.
Crows rose from trees nearby
As wounded women began to cry
Though mercy was in short supply.
They crackled again
And all was still.
Years later she said
She "grew up that day".
The image
Never went away
Of blood in the snow.
Trembling, wondering why
She could not catch her mother’s eye.
Just then guns crackled.
Crows rose from trees nearby
As wounded women began to cry
Though mercy was in short supply.
They crackled again
And all was still.
Years later she said
She "grew up that day".
The image
Never went away
Of blood in the snow.
The horror that was visited upon legions of people is terrible. And to have endured that at such a young age - unspeakably cruel. You did the topic justice.
ReplyDeleteThank you Jenny.
DeletePoignant words of a horrific time in recent history. Humanity has not yet learned - we hope this type of barbarity will never come again yet it has (Cambodia) and other travesties still happening as we reflect on this sombre occasion.
ReplyDeleteHumans injustice to their own, their planet and all its inhabitants - one hopes but doubts it will ever end!
I doubt it too Elle. Look at Trump separating families at the Mexico border. Look at Syria. At Yemen. At Nigeria. The horror and the injustice never stopped.
DeleteI cannot believe how some people think the holocaust was a fabrication. My father lost most of his family to it and my uncle was in a concentration camp for 3 months in 1938 but managed to buy his way out and escape to England with my dad on the promise never to return to Germany. A haunting poem,YP which will resonate with many people.
ReplyDeleteThe pain your father experienced must have been passed down to you in subtle ways. We were born very close in time to The Holocaust. Anyone who denies it might as well deny that there's a moon spinning round The Earth.
DeleteAnd we will never learn.
ReplyDeleteIt's like that song, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"..."When will they ever learn?"
DeleteJust too awful to fully comprehend.
ReplyDeleteWe were born just a few years after this horror occurred in the middle of Europe.
DeleteIt's impossible to believe that humans can be so insanely and horrifically cruel. And no, we haven't learned. And yes, we still allow these things to happen. Your poem was a good one.
ReplyDeleteFor an interesting and very different and human perspective on the Holocaust, I recommend this: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2102508/
There are some scenes in it that I will never stop pondering.
Thanks for the link Ms Moon. I will go there later.
DeleteI saw a shocking statistic the other day that something like one in 20 people in Britain don't believe the Holocaust happened, and many believe it has been exaggerated. Shocking in this day and age.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/27/one-in-20-britons-does-not-believe-holocaust-happened
Excellent poetic effort, YP!
That was another inspirational factor Steve. Not believing in the Holocaust is like not believing in gravity or not believing that The Earth is round. The evidence is incontrovertible.
DeleteVery moving poem. As you and others have mentioned, it is astounding to know that people believe that the Holocaust never happened. I remembered reading that there was a professor at a university here in the USA, and oddly enough, I even remembered it was at Northwestern...his name is Arthur Butz. I just looked him up, he wrote a book about the denial of the Holocaust in 1976. But guess what, I also read that in 2017, Amazon.com removed the book from its US and UK sites. Not a huge fan of Amazon, but that is something that we can agree on.
ReplyDeleteButz should have stuck to electrical engineering, keeping well away from subjects he knew nothing about. I wonder what motivated him to focus upon The Holocaust.
DeleteYP,
DeleteI wonder how he ever got that book published.