Poetry
Holocaust
by Sudeep Pagedar How do you explain that term to a ten- year old boy who, one day, hears it mentioned by some relatives? And even if you do manage to make him understand what it actually does mean, do you also tell him that because he is A GERMAN JEW, perhaps, some day, he might be included in it...? Or should he just not be told, so that he remains calm and doesn't lose sleep over it? But what is sleep, in front of death? Perhaps Death is greater, perhaps the two are the same; we do not know yet but we'll know, by the end of the day; the Chambers are yet some hours away. "To die, to sleep...to sleep, perchance to dream..." How did Shakespeare realise that? Did he know some Jew who was persecuted too? Perhaps he was wrong, maybe he was right... Anyway, I suspect we'll find out by tonight. |
Tale of a Sprinter, in the Winter of 1938
by Sudeep Pagedar THE PAST - I am an athlete from Berlin, my feet are fast and swift. I can run faster than anyone! Truly, this is the Lord's gift! Any race I participate in, I always come in first, for I tell myself, "I HAVE to win"; it is like a great thirst. Even if someone, somehow passes me, I put on an extra burst of speed and run past him, leaving him behind; thus, I take the lead. I once thought, "If I keep running this way, I might be in the Olympics, some day..." THE PRESENT - But now the year is nineteen-thirty-eight And for my dreams, it's just too late. My running days are all gone, I'm not going to see tomorrow's dawn. Yes, it is true that I can run very fast; But it is also true that I am a Jew... There's no running, from the Holocaust. |
Holocaust
by Barbara Sonek We played, we laughed we were loved. We were ripped from the arms of our parents and thrown into the fire. We were nothing more than children. We had a future. We were going to be lawyers, rabbis, wives, teachers, mothers. We had dreams, then we had no hope. We were taken away in the dead of night like cattle in cars, no air to breathe smothering, crying, starving, dying. Separated from the world to be no more. From the ashes, hear our plea. This atrocity to mankind can not happen again. Remember us, for we were the children whose dreams and lives were stolen away. |
Frozen Jews
Avrom Sutzkever July 10, 1944 Have you seen, in fields of snow, frozen Jews, row on row? Blue marble forms lying, not breathing, not dying. Somewhere a flicker of a frozen soul - glint of fish in an icy swell. All brood. Speech and silence are one. Night snow encases the sun. A smile glows immobile from a rose lip's chill. Baby and mother, side by side. Odd that her nipple's dried. Fist, fixed in ice, of a naked old man: the power's undone in his hand. I've sampled death in all guises. Nothing surprises. Yet a frost in July in this heat - a crazy assault in the street. I and blue carrion, face to face. Frozen Jews in a snowy space. Marble shrouds my skin. Words ebb. Light grows thin. I'm frozen, I'm rooted in place like the naked old man enfeebled by ice. |
Treblinka
by David Graham 1995 Europe's Young stir peacefully in sleep. After praying to God for their souls to keep. So tired after a sunny day of playing. Now tucked to bed warm, after on knees, praying. What a horrible thing - to awaken the next day. To realize these things are now taken away. Into ghettos they march - collective custody They lied. And in the distance, Treblinka's mouth is opening wide. Oh God in Heaven, show Us your great power! Why must these little Ones plunge from Life's Tower? To be rendered of their Souls by Treblinka's great might In yellow sand they are buried - day and night. Oh, Treblinka, Treblinka, Your jaws gape so wide - The young lambs herd in, unaware of what's inside. Run, little children...Run for your lives! You've been brought to The Slaughterhouse - where no one survives. It is easy to swallow these small ones whole - Efficiently you render body from soul. Straight from the trains - chased through your door... As Warsaw is emptied, you strain for more. Nothing stops you, Treblinka - hidden away in the woods. As your yellow sand turns red with blood. Is there anyone to stop this? Something must be done! If You are not stopped, there will remain not one. Treblinka you child-eater, your wheels spin and turn. Your gears well-oiled, while the human soup is churned A soup made of children who no longer run or play. A bloody soup that is dumped into yellow sand and clay. Dig pits in the sand - hidden beyond the trees - Treblinka exists only if no one sees. Covered over by Them, so that none would see The Place. To hide what was done - there is scarecly a trace. The Satanic Nazis smile, beckon & beguile. Why - it is not so hard to fool a young child! Could God really be giving these young ones up to die? Innocent teary eyes look to their parents & say "G'Bye" It would have been better had there never been a birth. For these innocent eyes will never see life's worth. Fate has chosen these little ones to die. Many today still ask, "Why?" We think it's all over - "...it is done, it is past" We want to believe the children screamed their last. But listen close, and you will hear the sound, Of Treblinka's faint heartbeat, below the yellow ground. In our weakness we call the madmen Them and They. Are our souls so different & brave - that we'd have stood in the way? So exalt not my friend, in a self-glorified stand.... For Treblinka sprang forth from the heart and mind of Man. |
Frail Envelope of Flesh
by Michael R. Burch for the mothers and children of the Holocaust Frail envelope of flesh, lying cold on the surgeon’s table with anguished eyes like your mother’s eyes and a heartbeat weak, unstable ... Frail crucible of dust, brief flower come to this-- your tiny hand in your mother’s hand for a last bewildered kiss ... Brief mayfly of a child, to live two artless years! Now your mother’s lips seal up your lips from the Deluge of her tears ... When we consider man's inhumanity to man, few images are as stark as the one of Nazi "surgeons" conducting horrific experiments on innocent children. |
Something
by Michael R. Burch for the children of the Holocaust Something inescapable is lost-- lost like a pale vapor curling up into shafts of moonlight, vanishing in a gust of wind toward an expanse of stars immeasurable and void. Something uncapturable is gone-- gone with the spent leaves and illuminations of autumn, scattered into a haze with the faint rustle of parched grass and remembrance. Something unforgettable is past-- blown from a glimmer into nothingness, or less, and finality has swept into a corner where it lies in dust and cobwebs and silence. Unnecessary cruelty and brutality are horrible enough, but when innocent children are the victims, words begin to fail us. The poem "Something" tries to capture something of the heartbreaking loss of young lives cut short, even as the poet admits his inability to do anything more than preserve a brief flicker of remembrance, an increasingly ethereal memory. What happened to millions of children during the Holocaust was a horror beyond imagining. Children who had been "born wrong" according to the Nazis—whether Jewish, Polish, Gypsy, Slavic, Russian or otherwise "inferior"—were either killed outright or stripped of their human rights and consigned to abysmal conditions in concentration camps and walled ghettoes. But as the poem below points out, even to this day completely innocent children continue to be stripped of their human rights and consigned to abysmal, terrifying conditions in refugee camps and walled ghettoes, while the world watches and does little or nothing to help them. |
Epitaph for a Child of the Nakba
by Michael R. Burch I lived as best I could, and then I died. Be careful where you step: the grave is wide. The Hebrew word for the Holocaust is Shoah; it means "Catastrophe." The Arabic word Nakba also means "Catastrophe." Today millions of completely innocent Palestinian children and their mothers and grandparents languish within the walled ghetto of Gaza, the walled bantustans of Occupied Palestine (the West Bank) and refugee camps across the Middle East. Why are people who are obviously not "terrorists" being collectively punished for the "crime" of having been "born wrong," just as Jews were once collectively punished by the Nazis? If it concerns you that such things continue to happen today, and in this case are being funded and supported by the government of the United States, please visit our Nakba Index and read what great humanitarians and Nobel Peace Prize winners like Albert Einstein, Mohandas Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter have said on the subject. The most admired Jewish intellectual of all time, the man most responsible for the advent of modern nonviolent resistance, the two men best known for ending South African apartheid, and the president who helped negotiate peace between Israel and Palestinians have all spoken firmly and eloquently against the racism and injustices that resulted in this new catastrophe, the Nakba. If you are a Christian, or have an interest in such things, you may want to read Did a Misinterpretation of the Bible lead to the Trail of Tears, American Slavery and the Holocaust? |
Nothing to Fear
Nothing to fear a pact of friendship non-aggression between two powers poised to squeeze out all life between them. Nothing to fear friendship ended a show of force one strong, one weak poised to erase life before them. Nothing to fear as birds of hell sweep from a fiery sky and dinosaurs of steel belch awesome fire rolling forward. Nothing to fear as a Hun hoard rolls on unstoppably followed by gods of hell as death head squads leave trails of death. Nothing to fear. |