The 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.
First They Came for the Jews Martin Niemöller :
First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.
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.
The Little Boy with His Hands Up Yala Korwin :
Your open palms raised in the air like two white doves frame your meager face, your face contorted with fear, grown old with knowledge beyond your years. Not yet ten. Eight? Seven? Not yet compelled to mark with a blue star on white badge your Jewishness.
No need to brand the very young. They will meekly follow their mothers.
You are standing apart Against the flock of women and their brood With blank, resigned stares. All the torments of this harassed crowd Are written on your face. In your dark eyes—a vision of horror. You have seen Death already On the ghetto streets, haven't you? Do you recognize it in the emblems Of the SS-man facing you with his camera?
Like a lost lamb you are standing Apart and forlorn beholding your own fate.
Where is your mother, little boy? Is she the woman glancing over her shoulder At the gunmen at the bunker's entrance? Is it she who lovingly, though in haste, Buttoned your coat, straightened your cap, Pulled up your socks? Is it her dreams of you, her dreams Of a future Einstein, a Spinoza, Another Heine or Halévy They will murder soon? Or are you orphaned already? But even if you still have a mother, She won't be allowed to comfort you In her arms.
Her tired arms loaded with useless bundles Must remain up in submission.
Alone you will march Among other lonely wretches Toward your martyrdom.
Your image will remain with us And grow and grow To immense proportions, To haunt the callous world, To accuse it, with ever stronger voice, In the name of the million youngsters Who lie, pitiful rag-dolls, Their eyes forever closed.
Frozen Jews Abraham Sutzkever :
Did you ever see in fields of snow Frozen Jews, in row upon row?
Breathless they lie, marbled and blue. Of death in their bodies, no hint and no clue.
Somewhere their spirit is frozen and saved Like a golden fish in a frozen wave.
Not speaking. Not silent. Just thinking bright. The sun too lies frozen in snow at night.
On a rosy lip, in the freeze, still glows A smile — will not move, not budge since it froze.
Near his mother, a baby starving, at rest. How strange: she cannot give him her breast.
The fist of a naked old man in surprise: He cannot release his force from the ice.
So far, I have tasted all kinds of death, None will surprise me, will catch my breath.
But now, overcome in the mid-July heat By a frost, like madness, right in the street:
They come toward me, blue bones in a row — Frozen Jews over plains of snow.
My skin is covered with a marble veil. My words slow down, my light that is frail.
My motions freeze, like the old man's surprise, Who cannot release his force from the ice.
Moscow, July 10, 1944
Passover Night 1942 Yala Korwin :
not a crumb of leavened or unleavened bread and no manna fell
no water sprang out of the bunker's wall the last potato was gone
we sat and we munched chunks of potato-peels more bitter than herbs
we didn't dare to sing and open the door for Elijah
we huddled and prayed while pillars of clouds massed above our heads
and pillars of fire loomed like blazing traps
Auschwitz By Charles N Whittaker:
The semiquaver chugging of the train on the track And the people on board who will never go back And the terror in the eyes of all the young ones to go With no one knowing as the train comes to slow
Those men at the station as the ramps drop down Where humanity lost is the only crippled sound Hope gone for those who stand behind the hard sharp wire And the smoke in the towers rises just a little higher
And the blue ink stabs a little harder in the skin Above the veins of despair where murder let it in And the terror in the eyes of all those about to leave Another train on the track no last minute reprieve
And the slow, cro...chet chugging of the train on the track; And the people on board. Who will ne...ver go.
Back.
The Butterfly #1 By Pavel Friedmann:
He was the last. Truly the last. Such yellowness was bitter and blinding Like the sun’s tear shattered on stone. That was his true colour. And how easily he climbed, and how high, Certainly, climbing, he wanted To kiss the last of my world.
I have been here seven weeks, ‘Ghettoized’. Who loved me have found me, Daisies call to me, And the branches also of the white chestnut in the yard. But I haven’t seen a butterfly here. That last one was the last one. There are no butterflies, here, in the ghetto.
The Butterfly #2 By Pavel Friedmann:
The last, the very last, So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow. Perhaps if the sun's tears would sing against a white stone...
Such, such a yellow Is carried lightly ‘way up high. It went away I'm sure because it wished to kiss the world goodbye.
For seven weeks I've lived in here, Penned up inside this ghetto But I have found my people here. The dandelions call to me And the white chestnut candles in the court. Only I never saw another butterfly.
That butterfly was the last one. Butterflies don't live in here, In the ghetto.
What I Don't Know by Ruth Dykstra 1999:
What you don't know can't hurt, they say. I disagree. Did they know? How awful, how hateful? The ghettos, the camps, the chamber, the stars? That made you feel, so different, so sad. As if, you weren't human, anymore. The lives taken, those spared, Will be changed forever. Those that saw and then, saw no more, Those that saw again and again. Those forced to leave, Those forced to stay, Those forced to be somewhere in the middle. There was no way out, no escape. Only to live, Only to die.