1. First They Came for the Jews

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 out because 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.

-Pastor Niemöller

2. The German Frontier at Basel: 1942

Just four miles to go and the frontier ahead,A few miles ahead and the weather ideal.A soft hanging haze over wooded landscape,Trees on the turn yet the air warm and dry.Peacefully at mid-day golden stretchesOf new-mown fields lie open and benign.A cooling breeze sweeps the grassy slopes.Early autumn: Tabernacles, Harvest Festival.

Disaster could not strike on a daySuch as this. His papers, after all, Were in perfect order. His directionsClear, his plan foolproof. Some foodStowed away, sufficient cash. No parcelsOr dependents. Just himself with a small,A really modest sized suitcase. Stop worrying,He told himself. You’re one of the lucky ones.

Only the tell-tale burn in the stomach,The deliberate effort to relax tense muscles.Short of breath. Much thirst. Little energy.At the border at last, he did, he didn’tExpect the difficulties. He was, he wasn’t Prepared for the arrest. He did, he didn’t Anticipate the arrangements: the jam-packed trains,The sweat, the stench, the gas, the horror.

-Hilda Schiff

3. He Was Lucky

The old manleaves his house, carries books.A German soldier snatches his booksflings them in the mud.

The old man picks them up,the soldier hits him in the face.The old man falls,the soldier kicks him and walks away.

The old manlies in mud and blood.Under him he feelsthe books.

-Anna Swirszczynska

4. Clouded Sky

The moon hangs on a clouded sky.I am surprised that I live.Anxiously and with great care, death looks for usand those it finds are all terribly white.

Sometimes a year looks back and howlsthen drops to its knees.Autumn is too much for me. It waits againand winter waits with its dull pain.

The forest bleeds. The hours bleed.Time spins overheadand the wind scrawlsbig dark numbers on the snow.

But I am still hereand I know why and why the air feels heavy--a warm silence full of tiny noises circles mejust as it was before my birth.

I stop at the foot of a tree,Its leaves cry with anger.A branch reaches down. Is it strangling me?I am not a coward. I am not weak, I am

tired. And silent. And the branchis also mute and afraid as it enters my hair.I should forget it, but Iforget nothing.

Clouds pour across the moon. Angerleaves a poisonous dark-green bruise on the sky.I roll myself a cigarette,slowly, carefully. I live.

-Miklós Radnóti

5. The Butterfly

He was the last. Truly the last.Such yellowness was bitter and blindingLike the sun’s tear shattered on stone.That was his true colour.And how easily he climbed, and how high,Certainly, climbing, he wantedTo kiss the last of my world.

I have been here for 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.

-Pavel Friedmann

6. Be Seeing You

After the third evening roundIn the yard of the concentration campWe disperse to our quarters

We know that before dawnOne of us will be taken out and shot

We smile like conspiratorsAnd whisper to each otherBe seeing you

We don’t say when or where

We’ve given up the old waysWe know what we mean

-Vasko Popa

7. Passion of Ravensbrück

He steps out from the others.He stands in the square silence.The prison garb, the convict’s skullblink like a projection.

He is horribly alone.His pores are visible.Everything about him is so gigantic,everything is so tiny.

And this is all.The rest-

The rest was simplythat he forgot to cry outbefore he collapsed.

-János Pilinszky

8. Fable

Once upon a timethere was a lonely wolflonelier than the angels.

He happened to come to a village.He fell in love with the first house he saw.

Already he loved its wallsthe caresses of its bricklayers.But the windows stopped him.

In the room sat people.Apart from God nobody everfound them so beautifulas this child-like beast.

So at night he went into the house.He stopped in the middle of the roomand never moved from there any more.

He stood all through the night, with wide eyesand on into the morning when he was beaten to death.

-János Pilinszky

9. Massacre of the Boys

The children cried ‘Mummy!But I have been good!It’s dark in here! Dark!’

See them They are going to the bottomSee the small feetthey went to the bottom Do you seethat printof a small foot here and there

pockets bulging with string and stonesand little horses made of wire

A great closed plainlike a figure of geometryand a tree of black smokea verticaldead treewith no star in its crown

-Tadeusz Rozewicz

10. Pigtail

When all the women in the transporthad their heads shavedfour workmen with brooms made of birch twigsswept upand gathered up the hair

Behind clean glassthe stiff hair liesof those suffocated in gas chambersthere are pins and side combsin this hair

The hair is not shot through with lightis not parted by the breezeis not touched by any handor rain or lips

In huge chestsclouds of dry hairof those suffocatedand a faded plaita pigtail with a ribbonpulled at schoolby misbehaving boys.

-Tadeusz Rozewicz

11. I Did Not Manage To Save

I did not manage to savea single life

I did not know how to stopa single bullet

and I wander round cemeterieswhich are not there

I look for wordswhich are not thereI run

to help where no one calledto rescue after the event

I want to be on timeeven if I am too late

-Jerzy Ficowski

12. War Has Been Given a Bad Name

I am told that the best people have begun sayingHow, from a moral point of view, the Second World WarFell below the standard of the First. The Wehrmacht Allegedly deplores the methods by which the SS effectedThe extermination of certain peoples. The Ruhr industrialistsAre said to regret the bloody manhuntsWhich filled their mines and factories with slave workers.

The intellectuals,So I heard, condemn industry’s demand for slave workersLikewise their unfair treatment. Even the bishopsDissociate themselves from this way of waging war; in short the feelingPrevails in every quarter that the Nazis did the FatherlandA lamentably bad turn, and that war,While in itself natural and necessary, has, thanks to theUnduly uninhibited and positively inhumanWay in which it was conducted on this occasion, beenDiscredited for some time to come.

-Bertolt Brecht

NAKEDBy Sara Holbrook

The first time I saw a man naked,It was not my brother.I was born without a brother,which everyone knowsis like being born without green hair,or a wart on the tip of your nose,or the skin of a reptile.Being born with no brother was a definite asset,or so I thought until fifth grade, when I started to wonder.I wondered why every time I would mention the word “it,”in any context, the boys would laugh—they’d fall on the ground.It was as if we tuned into two different programs,like they were tuned into cartoons and I was watching a mystery.I wondered.And I wondered with the sense of urgencyof 4:30 in the afternoon and Mom says,“No more snacks before dinner,”and you’re starving.I wanted what I wanted and I wanted it now.Prevailing neighborhood trade policies provided for such things,A look for a look, even up. Worth considering,until a permission slip came home from school.There was to be a film about growing up.Well, even I knew that was a fiftiespeak for “naked.”My wonder swelled within me—I had swallowed a balloon.I couldn’t breathe.Breathless, until the film showed us diagrams.Diagrams? Bones without the meat.It looked like a direction sheet on how to assemble a bicycle,absolutely no help at all. I deflated gradually.A couple weeks later, another film. No permission slips this time.Just a film about the war of our fathers, World War II.Germany. Hitler youth. Wind up soldiers. Waving train cars.

Pits of white, white limbs. Ovens, not for cakes.Three men standing against a fence, heads shaved.

Their collars poking out like coat hangers without the clothes.The picture cut off at the hollow places whereTheir bellies belonged.

Except for one man, standing in the background,Who stepped deliberately to the side.

Stripped of any sense of wonder or urgency, he made no attempt to cover himself.He faced the camera because he wanted to see me.I dragged my feet a little on the way home from school that day,kicking aimlessly at fallen leaves.

Not so much in a hurry.After all, I had seen.

For the first time,I had seen a man,

naked

The Man with the Broken Fingers --Carl SandburgThe Man with the Broken Fingers throws a shadow.Down from the spruce and evergreen mountain timbers of Norway--And across Europe and the Mediterranean to the oasis palms of Libya--He lives and speaks a sign language of lost fingers.From a son of Norway who slipped the Gestapo nets, the Nazi patrols,The story comes as told among those now in Norway.

Shrines in their hearts they have for this nameless manWho refused to remember names names names the Gestapo wanted."Tell us these names. Who are they? Talk! We want those names!"And the man faced them, looked them in the eye, and hours passed and nonames came -- hours on hours and no names for the Gestapo.They told him they would break him as they had broken others.The rubber hose slammed around face and neck,The truncheon handing pain with no telltale marks,Or the distinction of a firing squad and death in a split second --The Gestapo considered these and decided for him something else again."Tell us those names. Who were they? Talk! Names now -- or else!"And no names came -- over and over and no names.

So they broke the little finger of the left hand.Three fingers came next and the left thumb bent till it broke.Still no names and there was a day and night for rest and thinking it overThen again the demand for names and he gave them the same silence.And the little finger of the right hand felt itself twisted,Back and back twisted till it hung loose from a bleeding socket.Then three more fingers cracked and splintered one by oneAnd the right thumb back and back into shattered bone.

Did he think about violins or accordions he would never touch again?Did he think of baby or woman hair he would never again play with?Or of hammers or pencils no good to him any more?Or of gloves and mittens that would always be misfits?He may have laughed half a moment over a Gestapo jobSo now for a while he would handle neither knife nor forkNor lift to his lips any drinking-cup handleNor sign his name with pen between thumb and fingers.

And all this was halfway -- there was more to come.The Gestapo wit and craft had an aim.They wanted it known in Norway the Gestapo can be terrible.They wanted a wide whispering of fearOf how the Nazis handle those who won't talk or tell names."We give you one more chance to co-operate."Yet he had no names for them.His locked tongue, his Norwegian will pitted against Nazi will,His pride and faith in a free man's way,His welcoming death rather that do what they wanted --They brought against this their last act of fury,Breaking the left arm at the elbow,Breaking it again at the shoulder socket --And when he came to in a flicker of opening eyesThey broke the right arm first at the elbow, then the shoulder.By now of course he had lost all memory of names, even his own.And there are those like you and me and many many othersWho can never forget the Man with the Broken Fingers.His will, his pride as a free man, shall go on.His shadow moves and his sacred fingers speak.He tells men there are a thousand writhing shattering deathsBetter to die one by one than to say yes yes yesWhen the answer is no no no and death is welcome and death is soonAnd death is a quiet step into a sweet clean midnight.

Frozen Jews (Sutzkever)

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.

The VictimSome one mentioned the 'Holocaust' the old Jewish man said 'no'Such word i do not wish to hear that happened years agoThen he slowly folded up his sleeve and numbers etched in blueTold of the sufferings he'd known and all he had been through.

A silence fell o'er one and all across the club room floorAnd in his presence 'Holocaust' not mentioned any moreWe had amongst us in the flesh one who had lived through hellBut i wish that he could have spoke of sufferings he could tell.

Don't mention 'Holocaust' to me with one wave of his handA silence fell o'er one and all how could we understand? The agony he had been through, the torture and the painWe did not mention 'Holocaust' no not to him again.

My heart went to that Jewish man who sought no sympathyHe wanted to block out his past as a bad memoryDon't mention 'Holocaust' to me and little else he saidBut i could picture living soul whose thoughts were with the dead.

That night i did not sleep too well i had recurring dreamI watched the hungry slowly die, i heard the tortured screamI saw a gray haired jewish man the sorrow on his faceAnd i was in another time a dark and a sadder place.

I woke and when i went to sleep the dream returned to meOf Jewish man with tragic past who sought no sympathyI see a young man in his prime with a hunger wasted frameWith numbers branded on his hand 'they'd robbed him of his name'.

Some one mentioned the 'Holocaust' the old jewish man said 'no'Such word i do not wish to hear that happened years agoThen he slowly folded up his sleeve and numbers etched in blueTold of the sufferings he'd known and all he had been through.

Francis Duggan

The Archivistby Lois E. Olena Note by note I type the awful historyof the victims of the Third Reich.Misery like dirt under my fingernailsplays out through my soft, safe digits; haunting violin tonesfade away as the next song begins slowlysparingly luscioussoft chords rock me, caress me...rock me, sway me... side to sidelike a cattle car fading into the distance. What is this caught in my throat? turnips? raw potatoes? black bread? No matter;move on, they're waiting. Hurry, finish.Pay your bills. Feed your face.Play your PC piano until weariness from the death marchlays you gently down in the snow for your afternoon napand you dream that the knock on your dooris the UPS man come to take you away.

The ShoesHolocaust relics-A roomfulA racefulA hatefulOf survivors.

Uninvited, unasked, unnoticedBy leather and lace, By sole and tongue, By eyelet and buckle, We step into the room-

One by oneOur thoughts take a cold shower.

No cut-price bargains here, No nice nostalgia, In this shop window installationOf quiet horror.

It is not the poemsThat follow you outDown Washington’s wealthy sidewalks

It is not the family photosThat dog you, much, much laterScratching away at your door,

It is a child’s sandal, scuffed across the toe, An old man’s surgical boot ingrained with dust, A dancing girl’s high-heels, A widow’s slippers, Inhuman horrid survivalOf the fittest.

Frozen MomentsAs I sit here separated, but together Drowning behind the embers of bridges broken\burning of oldThinking of all the good thing and bad thingI’ve done, I see glimpse’s of the futureAnd they confirm suspicionsOf the holocaust too come

The rusty stitching of the tapestry, Which keeps the anger in, Is coming undoneAnd the sun is in the eastIts day again Even though the day is lost I seeTwo suns in the sunsetI’m sitting whole in a pretense again

Like the moment when the soul locksAnd the sound is stolen from your voice boxYour fear stretches the frozen momentsPart of you feels homeless in the skin you’re inAll you hear are voices you never see the facesYou feel broken and lost within

As the heartbeats meltMy tears evaporateLeaving only a shadow too defendI finally understand The feelings of a fewAshes and dustMy foe and friend We are equal in the end

As I sit here separated, but together Drowning behind the embers of bridges broken\burning of oldThinking of all the good thing and bad thingI’ve done, I see glimpse’s of the futureAnd they confirm suspicionsOf the holocaust too come

Daniel Richards

Holocaust Poetry

Read the poem you have been assigned. Come to class on ______ ready to discuss your poem.

1. What images are evident in your poem? How do the images contribute to the meaning of the poem and/or the poem’s impact on the reader?

2. What do you think was the poet’s intention in the writing of the poem? What makes you think that?

3. How does your poem connect to Night or other knowledge you have of World War II and/or the Holocaust?

4. What is the relationship of your poem to the following concepts?a. Persecution

b. Isolation

c. Dehumanization