The 'Last' Train

The last train to Auschwitz ... Birkenau ... October 28, 1944 to the gate of hell and most brutal and the largest death camp of extermination (1.1 million dead) ~ the last train carried 2,038 people locked in fully enclosed and windowless cattle cars with no food or water and ventilation ... ~ many, many died along the way on this last journey of horrific days they were people like you and me condemned and made to pay for the train trip to their own death ... ~ 1,589 people were immediately gassed on arrival and their bodies disposed of quickly ... people like you and me with little hope ~ the survivors said the camp smelled like the burning of human flesh that people were herded like animals they had been told they were going ... to labour camps ... to work the Holocaust train was a train of death that transported people like you and me ... ~ Auschwitz today is an emblem of evil and a site of remembrance and a fathomless cemetery to honor the ashes and bones of victims .... ~ ... of the Nazi Final Solution _____________________ April 14, 2021 Poetry/Free Verse/The "Last" Train Copyright Protected, ID 04-1347-080-14 All Rights Reserved, 2021, Constance La France Written for the Premier contest, Last Train to Auschwitz sponsor, Kai Michael Neumann, Judged 05/05/2021