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In Memory of the Holocaust by Josef Elgurt, 1994, sepia-drawing (71 x 46 cm). The original is on permanent loan to the Jewish Museum of Riga. ©1994 Josef Elgurt.
Holocaust - Poetry
"REMEMBRANCE"by Tawnysha Lynch
Here I stand in the midst of AuschwitzMy mind racing with memories.Silent people walkWhere living skeletons worked.
There is a silence,But I hear the cries of my people.A slight breeze passes,But I feel the beating of a whip.
My hands sift through what seems like ashesAnd I glimpse a sea of bodies aflame.There is an open field,But I see innocent people beaten.
A lone building stands in the distance,But I see a place of death.A place where terrible things took placeHorrors not even known to man.
With wistful eyes, I observe this placeSeeing things of the pastThis place being as I left itWith an echo of remembrance.
Excerpt from Remembrance, copyright 2001 ISBN 189123157X
Holocaustby Barbara Sonek
We played, we laughedwe were loved.We were ripped from the arms of ourparents and thrown into the fire.We were nothing more than children.We had a future. We were going to belawyers, rabbis, wives, teachers, mothers.We had dreams, then we had no hope. We were taken away in the dead of nightlike 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 childrenwhose dreams and lives were stolen away.
Man reaching out for help, Holocaust Memorial, Miami Beach
Reveille by Primo Levi
In the brutal nights we used to dreamDense violent dreams,Dreamed with soul and body:To return; to eat; to tell the story.Until the dawn commandSounded brief, low'Wstawac*'And the heart cracked in the breast.
Now we have found our homes again,Our bellies are full,We're through telling the story.It's time. Soon we'll hear againThe strange command:'Wstawac‘
(*“get up” command in Polish used at Auschwitz)
Auschwitz, Poland
Shemaby Primo Levi
You who live secureIn your warm housesWho return at evening to findHot food and friendly faces:
Consider whether this is a man,Who labours in the mudWho knows no peaceWho fights for a crust of breadWho dies at a yes or a no.Consider whether this is a woman,Without hair or nameWith no more strength to rememberEyes empty and womb coldAs a frog in winter.Consider that this has been:I commend these words to you.Engrave them on your hearts
When you are in your house, when you walk on your way,When you go to bed, when you rise.Repeat them to your children.Or may your house crumble,Disease render you powerless,Your offspring avert their faces from you.
Holocaust Memorial, Miami
DANIELby Laura Crist
And the child held her handA child tiny for almost eight,Deep blue eyes that dominated his face,When he explained new events to her,
That funny doggy,That pretty rock,
And the freckles on his cheek,No one saw a sunrise more perfect,
To her, She so vividly smells the fragrance of
His hair,His ears,His breath in the morning
She vividly hears that little heartbeat,That was hersAlways hers,
And the laughter,That raspy little laugh,When he caught her in a conundrum.
All this,But this is merely the surface,As she watches her little God sheared,
And stripped,For the gas chamber.
Ghetto Uprising – Lachva, Poland
September 3, 1942by Evelyn Roman – Holocaust Survivor
The last September morningWithout a miracle from aboveFrom his invisible beingOr from the world below Abandoned, we were doomed Our ghetto was to be consumed. The sun rose blood-red that morningEver faithful to its courseShamefully it went on shiningWhile death was waiting at our doors That day of judgment Our fateful moment.
Jews an uprising stagingGermans caught by surpriseGhetto house blazingEight Nazis killed
Barbed wire stormed Few of us survived.
All visions were endingGone was all hopeCruelty was ragingIn unimaginable scope Good bye childhood dreams And times yet to be. The chaos this morningThe murder of my kin When torment meant livingDays cruel beyond wordsWith no time for grievingWhile roaming the woods I often was heartened By the love they imparted Their piercing screams resoundingRecurring in my brain Time can never heal The gnawing pain that I feel.
Frozen Jewsby 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.
First They Came for the Jewsby Martin Niemöller
First they came for the Jewsand I did not speak outbecause I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communistsand I did not speak outbecause I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionistsand I did not speak outbecause I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for meand there was no one leftto speak out for me.
Somethingby Michael R. Burch
for the children of the Holocaust
Something inescapable is lost—lost like a pale vapour curling up into shafts of moonlight,vanishing in a gust of wind toward an expanse of starsimmeasurable 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 liesin dust and cobwebs and silence.
The Butterflyby Pavel Friedmann June 4, 1942
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 good-bye.
For seven weeks I've lived in here,Penned up inside this ghetto.But I have found what I love here.The dandelions call to me And the white chestnut branches in the court.Only I never saw another butterfly.
That butterfly was the last one.Butterflies don't live here,in the ghetto.
Assembled by: A. Ballas
