Poems about Concentration Camps

Straight A source of a stream, A rush of wind, A songbird trills Not boldly in a blue twilight. He greeted us With a warm billow; The cold awakened blood The souls worn out from longing Touched:            Freedom! In two months – maybe three – You take on slave the – you hear:            Freedom! The lips move tremblingly – The eyes shiny glassy stretched out, Masses: Dried up, torn, blackened figures Are happy as naïve children: Freedom is coming – when? Why still so long? Will we live to see the spring sun? Rush and hurry over! Make your steps larger And fly fast as eagles With wide long fluttering wings – And the hearts screaming full of pain! Come liberate, oh freedom! (December 1944) * Those arrested, Hats off the heads, Foreheads up high – Be vigilant! The hour longed for has struck – One next to another, free people, free step. Over our heads, Even yesterday attacked with daggers, The flag flutters in space On the ship's tall mast. The flag looks down from below: – Are you ready, are you courageous? – "We are ready" – The storm brews more strongly – With you in strength to the shores of the land [1] we come!

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There was a fire in the forest And annihilated young and old They fell in front of my eyes The saw sawed the remainders None of my near ones remained Branches blazed, roots, trees, Everything around burnt into coal I, entirely bare, Tore off my right side My wound still has not healed. Be strong my child you are worthy of this Send your roots deep into the earth The last will of exterminated millions Cannot be fenced in with the tallest fence. The wind carries our seeds We build our home now And when the hour will come There will be a rush here around the forest: Here in the sun in the yellow sand Our fatherland rises.

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Secretly huddled together Like lonely oxen, With deeply furrowed foreheads, Eyes wildly flared up, It seems – atrocious suspense. They move closer and closer, One, two, now the center glides And all the more without end. And they stretch out hand to hand The lips move lightly: No word – no movement. Secretly, like demons, They celebrate the day in the small synagogue, Year in year out, They have an accounting with the Creator. Today is different however – than always: Today it is not celebrated – but mourned, Not holidayed – but lamented And what was holy – is horrible! It is raining already for days, You want to pray to God, you want to say something, Sink yourself into a prayer, And in my ear grates: “Treblinka!” You want to drive away burning suffering You raise your glance up to heaven, You begin to speak tremblingly: “I am sinful, pardon my sins, Which I suffered from villains; Pardon my transgressions, Father's, mother's, small childrens'… Pardon for everything that is borne By your chosen people – Loving God,.” But from the distance devil-chimneys wink And in my ear grates: “Treblinka!” I want to believe, Mighty God, You are full of compassion and grace, You will forgive our sins – But in my ear grates: “So many innocent lives!”… The rain does not stop knocking on the panes, It mixes together with the sounds of prayer; The sky is crying, fields complain silently – The entire autumn is crying… It is scary outside, something wails, You hear a sob from a child's voice – This is the wind driving the ashes of the burned ones Over the fields there in Auschwitz… You drive away the gnawing marches, Which can give you some prayers! Can any of the dear ashes Now come back to life!? But the words in your throat remain congealed, It starts to choke you on occasion… “You will have your Yom Kippur for ever” – You hear a fierce intermediate-voice “Today is your Yom Kippur, and also tomorrow!” – You hear the sound of a dead voice. “You will not find any comfort or joy, Your fate is tied with ours since long ago. Our lament with thunder-echo In your soul will storm and torture you, The tragic consciousness will never leave you, That you were not always alone.”

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The ashes of the martyrs call for revenge, Days pass, one after another the same, And your day of judgment will stretch without an end… Your soul becomes full of bitterness… …In dreams and in wakefulness you will call the murdered, On the rack, fine – and not fallen in battle. You will not know any rest and peace, Both by day and by night you will be full of pain and tortures. The shadows of the gassed and burned Will follow you your entire life's journey, Will remind you, that your day of judgment Is today and tomorrow and until the end of your days! …

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A scary horror, To believe an animal, a beast And not a person. After Majdanek and Treblinka, Where living corpses, like dust, Were scattered, on paths and roads, I can no longer believe in man. After the poisonous gas-chambers, Which suffocated human souls, You hear?: living human creation – When I smelled from a distance, The Smoke-nightmare, of burning bodies, I stopped believing in man. After the death-camps: Auschwitz, Dachau, Where nursing children were plucked out like tufts of hair, And German decrees Thought out “scientific” deaths… From human bodies were created living graves… This disturbed my belief in man. You will say: – human thought Conquered mystical nature Split the atom, Pushed culture foremost, That artistic beauty is powerful, That many new ideas are elevated… Reality is bitter, That this is the tyranny of contemporary Sodom, Which pulverized my faith in man. Who then can defuse the great anger After so many millions of holy victims, After my blood brothers fell From the tortures of gas and the crematorium… Who…? Who will prove it to me? That Raphael's paintings Made man milder And drew him out of the jungle. Who…? Who will prove to me, That with such culture, One can be proud or honored… Who can compare pains of mothers During childbirth – Brutally torn from their arms, And the cry without tears… The war tore something inside of me, Which laments without a stop and deafens, How gladly I clasped people, And so strongly believed in man. (From Polish: Kamieniecki)

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God! You created the lightning and the fire, You brought forth life and expression And enchanted millions with secrets, A world machine with sparkling strengths Animals and people with hearts and minds: You with your knowledge and measure – Answer a person with doubting faith And a heart with bloody wounds: Why, when you created feelings for people, Did you also throw into life the sources To feel them, even when they want to laugh, Because how otherwise can an orphan laugh without his mother? And somebody whose father was burned, Can that person still be happy with life? And for those, whose bodies are eaten by cannons, Is there still joy for them in the grave? Why is there so much sorrow tied up with life, So few happy occasions and sadness without end? You created a mind and a heart that should feel, And whoever thirsts for happiness, why can he not be quieted? And the question remains without an echo, You do not answer the scream of millions And you do not see souls who suffered in pain, Who in their last expiring minutes Glanced at the Heavens, Your name on their lips. Will there still come an answer from you, mighty Creator? I wait and I wait. At crack of day and night And then the terrible question steals in: I do not want to hear it. Yet deep in my heart Doubt creeps inside And in my subconscious I wonder If you are really the most powerful of all. (From Polish: Kamieniecki)

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There is no forgiveness… by Dr. J. Nower Translated by Andrzej Ciesla Every one of those whom the German killed Was our brother. He lived and suffered. In the same way as we do, he enjoyed the spring. And he also wished to for his happy moment. He dreamt of his happiness, of his beautiful tomorrow. With goodness he looked at small children He reached out his arms to life and to the people, Or clung to his mother in emotion. Every one of those whom the German killed Was our dear and beloved brother, He underwent his experiences and longings. He sang the songs and enjoyed a flower. But how he had suffered at the moment of his death. Who fell from the German bloody hand, Just think, just think how he suffered. How terrible were those last groans. Can we really forget all of that And be in peace for a moment… A morning dew will remind us of the tears of those killed The wind will repeat their protests… Can you hear a grey old man's groaning? He is your father, whom the Gestapo tortures at Majdanek… Can you hear that mournful cry of a little baby? It is your child that you caressed and loved… Can you hear thick cries from the underground, And the desperate calls at night… Can you hear the clatter of the bones, can you smell the corpses, Can you see the dear bodies twisted in the crematoriums… You must remember the anathema of Israel Wherever the German foot strode, With the bitterness in your heart you will remember the Treblinkas Not in the name of revenge, but in the name of justice, With your punishing hand you will reach the murderers And you will shout: There is no forgiveness, there is no mercy…

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The water ran up and down like this. And here a wave reaches – a silvery, gray head: The waves shape giant dangerous hands. And thunder and lightning screams: – “the sea is burning! It is burning!” Piles and piles squeeze into the circle dance – And scream and roar: – one – remains one! … One is worth thirteen: – one is simply one – * I will now sing a small lamentation. My song is composed of tears and blood And burns, like a fire in the heart with its flame: Thirteen Jews were forged together in a circle of chains, And a bonfire was set in the middle. Ordered to turn and dance – a round circle dance – And scream and call, and pray to God, While their God, the One, the tribes still twelve: They have to turn around and cry: – God, help! The God and the tribes – totaling thirteen all together – Thus Jews, persecuted, scream out loud. “You know already about Abram,” screams a German and laughs, “His one and only Isaac – brought as a sacrifice. But God thought to himself, that Isaac alone Is too small a sacrifice, it is too small for Him; So we are now correcting God's mistake: – – So turn yourselves around, cursed ones, in the circle dance! – So clank with your chains with which you are forged And dance around the bonfire, at the sacrifice – a Jew! – So each one of you must be an Abram – Burn your Isaac, as you will do .later.” Jews with silver beards are turning around – The chains are clanking, the earth is turning. The bonfire spits flames up to heaven, wide, far – A large black cloud of smoke turns like a snake. A truck comes with roars from the highway With Jewish children, who quiver, packed together. The children still quiver like little fish in a net. Half dead, suffocated, beaten – with one net, Suffocated in screams, in horrible peals, Aching for distant breasts, mothers' milk. Their little eyes half open, and little eyes closed. – Is there still a God? * And each one of the thirteen drags a child, received, You must throw it into the bonfire and scream – one! This is after all the sacrifice, which their God wants. – “So Juden, cry courageously, for your proud God Lay the children in the fire like wood, One – two – three one – two – three! And three – across. – Jehova is thirsty, and needs to have more… So courageously, cursed ones, lay the children, with pride. The Jewish children – like wood on the altar… – The children, they are but fruit of your sins – – So one – two, and three – four and another child.” The chains clank, the beards shake. The fire spits sparks: the earth is turning. In the nearby neighborhood it was actually spring. Three days and three nights the bonfire burned. The roast smelled with flowers, with grass. A stork seldom turned away his nose. The frogs croaked as though somewhere at the river: The branches shushed, quickly quieted. And here comes Wednesday, the week breaks, Thirteen still live, they are still turning around. The chains are barely clinking, ordered: – “Be quiet! Turn and expire.” So desires The Lieutenant, the Eldest, from the German might.

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Because killing a Jew is the holiest thing. When the sweating ones could no longer Stand on their feet, or lift their arms, No longer could they open their mouths, or their eyes see – Still the last order was: – “ Press yourselves into the ash-heap, the thirteen in number, So that there should be smoke, and it should become quiet. – One – two – three, – one two – three! Push into the bonfire.” Thirteen fall into the ashes; the ashes mix together With bones of the children, with old people; Trees move – it is summer in the land. Spring left, too early, as though oppressed. It was ashamed to meet with summer… Not spring, not summer – a mish-mash itself, Which nobody understands and knows Its meaning… The bonfire remains, named “one.” A hill, a grave, where near a path – Which shudders gray, in loneliness – the nights and the days. – O, our generations! Suck in hatred for the Germans, Stormy, seething, and be on the lookout. One Jew remained from the thirteen, He sings this very song to you in the evening. He soars here with blood, and with tears, weeping. Your child is crying here, and you yourself. – So, listen in the evening at night and late, Like the Shema prayer, at bedtime, in bed; One amounts to thirteen – one – is only one. – Get used to singing this little song also…

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* one – the call of Jews to God in prayer (according to letters 1 – 8 – 4 = 13) return

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