Dennis Spilchuk Poet Prose

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At the Gates of Auschwitz

At the Gates of Auschwitz

Today, I stand
At the gates of hell;
“Arbeit macht frei”
("Work sets you free!")—
That is Auschwitz.
Where they burned God’s children
And the world stood by,
Oblivious
To what was happening inside.
The League of Nations
(Whose mandate was world peace)
Failed!
And in 1942,
The trains rolled into Auschwitz
Carrying God’s children,
Who were packed like cattle into boxcars
(Cold, diseased, inhumanely treated),
Ready for slaughter.
Insane hatred condemned them,
As in the past,
For events through no fault of theirs
Because they were Jewish.

Take, for example,
That ocean liner in 1939,
The MS St. Louis,
Carrying Jews to Cuba.
A scheme of the Nazis
To prove Jews were pariahs,
Whom nobody would welcome,
Nor would anyone want.
Cuba denied the ship safe harbour;
The U.S.A. turned it away,
And likewise, so did Canada,
And the three systemically decreed,
“It’s not our problem!”

Germany did have a solution:
Ethnic cleansing
In the ovens of Auschwitz.
And the world looked the other way.
The world did not care!
Later, when the horror was exposed,
The free world would apologize, officially.
“If we do not remember the past,
We are doomed to repeat it.”
At the Dachau concentration camp,
On the memorial to the Holocaust,
It is written,
“Never Again!”
                        ***

Note:
   On May 13, 1939, the M.S. St. Louis departed Hamburg, Germany, bound for Havana, Cuba, with approximately nine hundred and one Jewish refugees aboard, to escape from Nazi persecution. Only twenty-eight passengers were allowed to disembark.
   The ship then sailed to the United States of America, where it was refused safe entry, and then to Canada, and was also refused safe entry. The ship returned to Antwerp, Belgium, and the passengers were granted refugee status in a number of European countries.

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Constance La France December 16, 2018 at 9:18 AM Dennis, congratulations on having your wonderful and emotional write selected as a Feature Poem this week, enjoy the honor ~ Dennis Spilchuk December 16, 2018 at 11:05 AM Thank you very much for the honor of the selection.

Arthur Vaso April 16, 2018 at 10:47 PM I am not here as much as I would like, but I have to commend you on this fine poem! Is sad people do not learn thus why we repeat! Dennis Spilchuk July 7, 2018 at 10:14 AM So True. In 1976, a movie was produced about the MS St. Louis called "The Voyage of the Damned."

Jan Allison April 16, 2018 at 4:59 PM Bravo for writing such a powerful poem - they teach about the holocaust in the schools and I hope it is 'never again'. I went to a talk by a war veteran who was one of the first to go into repatriate at Bergen Belsen (I think it was) he could hardly talk as he was chocked with the emotion and said 'i saw things no man should ever witness' hugs jan xx Dennis Spilchuk July 7, 2018 at 10:16 AM The holocaust was a true human tragedy that occurred which will scar mankind forever.