Shoah In the beginning was the Word and the word was Jew.
And the word said Other, the word said Them. Not Me, not You. Then the ploughing of the minds and the sowing of the lies
and the lies said Rapists and the lies said Thieves
and the lies said Evil in disguise.
And the Word was Demonise. Then the growing of the Weeds. And the Weeds were Greed.
And the Weeds were Spite and the Weeds were Schadenfreude
and folk passed by on the other side.
And the Word was Bleed. Then the writing of the Laws.
And the Laws said Jews
are not as other men.
No loving of your neighbour.
No Jews as citizens.
And the Word was Cleanse. Then the packing into trucks and the tracks led east.
People carried like beasts and harried like beasts
and herded like beasts into pens.
And the Word was Untermensch. Then the Words became a sentence and it sent them to their death
by burdening the strong, who earned another breath
before they died,
and murdering the rest, who simply died.
And the Word was Genocide. From the Book of Numbers Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, after their families, by the house of their dying. At Maidanek, two hundred thousand. At Sobibor, two hundred and fifty thousand. At Chelmno, three hundred and twenty thousand. At Belzec, six hundred thousand. At Treblinka, seven hundred thousand. At Auschwitz-Birkenau, one million. and the sum of all those who passed through the gates and died was three million. And in forests and in fields and in cellars,
in the backs of vans as they drove to the lime pits
and in the ghetto streets and sewers;
in all the places where they lived
or had fled or were taken, and died,
again three million. These were the numbered of the children of Israel who died,
six million. Six Million and One Gather the memories,
one, and six million.
Count them,
account them,
for ever, for ever,
u’l’allmei allmayaw Gather the memories,
the family photographs
tucked in your suitcase,
your name on the lid -
quickly, now, quickly -
to take to the trucks
where they count and account you,
transport you and sort you
schwacher from shtarker,
kranker, gezunter,
Arbeit or Freiheit,
where they stack you like suitcases,
ransacked like suitcases,
spectacles, clothing,
shoes, hair and fillings,
bone-ash and smoke,
your memories scattered…
‘This is me mit mayn Tate’
‘This is me mit mayn Mame’
‘This is me mit mayn Bruder’
‘This is me’
‘This is me’ Appel Fritsch promised, ‘Two weeks for a Jew,
a month for a priest and the rest live three.’
Live because you have to prove him wrong. Stand strong. The ovens smell the weak.
Surviving hell’s a trick of brain on body.
Live because your mind won’t let you die. Breathing itself brings hope, a trick
the body plays upon the mind.
Live because your ribs move in and out. Work to live and live on your own flesh
for a month, three if you steal some food.
Live because you have to keep the scroll, hold in the Ark of your skull the horror of Appel,
this harrowed field of heads bowed to the wind.
Live because you have to testify. Tattoo The tattoo is a bruise on your soul, an IOU
blued in your flesh
for the years they stole,
for the blood debt they cannot repay.
It’s a snap-shot,
a freeze-frame reminding you,
they took away your name. It’s a raw spot,
a skin-prick you can’t numb
with all the calluses you grew.
You feel too much, and not enough,
marking your boundaries in blue
and shouting who you are,
with your star on your sleeve,
your insistent tattoo. Testimony It happened as I told you. I was there. Enough. They took us all, taking from us all
or almost all.
Why ask of me the little that remains.
Just let me be.
Should I be more than human now,
when then they showed me I was less ? Should I be angry ? So I am. Forgiving ?
Sometimes I can manage that.
Sometimes I am good, sometimes
less so. And still you tell me, ‘Tell us.’
Horror told so often is banal. Retelling
seems to alter nothing. I wanted to be ordinary,
not singled out as witness to this extraordinary
thing.
I wish I could forget,
sometimes. Sometimes, I fear forgetting
When the gates opened
I could be anything,
save what I had been, before,
or what I might have been, except.
Freedom is not enough. So I light another candle in the darkness,
that you may say,
‘I see’. Shamash Our lamp is hammered from the one block.
Our branches are of the one tree
rooted in the one earth.
There is no gene for victim or oppressor.
We must all carry the lamp.
There is no-one else. The truth of this is the shamash, the light
from which all other truths are lit,
and still we forget
that no outrage is beyond us
in the night of our righteousness.
We must all carry the lamp.
There is no-one else. From the dark night of all their deaths
shine the stars of who they were.
Remembering them and bearing witness
is the lamp that lights the world.
We must all carry the lamp.
There is no-one else. Copyright © Don Barnard 2004 Click the link on the right, 'Writing 'Memorah', to read Don Barnard's thoughts behind 'Menorah,' a sequence of seven poems he was commissioned to write for Holocaust Memorial Day>>> The right of Don Barnard to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from Don Barnard. Published by D. Barnard (formerly Semicolon Press)
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