Best Auschwitz Poems
He stood shivering in the biting cold
Shreds of dirty, flimsy clothes clung to his frame
All around his fellow skeletons huddled
Waiting for the inevitable walk to that sinister place
His wait had been longer than most
He had been subjected to terrible cruelty
He had seen all of his friends and family go
Yet in his mind he had remained free
His physical torment seemed detached when lost in his memories
His little girl chasing her puppy in the bright sunshine
Friends and relatives around the festive table laughing, chatting, eating
Walking hand-in-hand with his beloved around the moonlight lake
But the freezing wind jolted him back to the hellish reality
He looked towards the barbed-wire fence which bounded his world
There sat on the top wire was a little bird
It sang the sweetest of tunes seemingly just for him
It looked at him as it sang with such innocence
And then with a flutter of its tiny wings
It swooped towards him, turned and glided back over the fence
It pecked at the hard earth before flying into the woods beyond
He knew it was his time
Into that building he trudged
But he had a strange sense of elation
Closing his eyes at last he was free
The morning light shone brightly
The little bird was at his side
It guided him on as they soared through the sky
With the shackles of hell cast aside freedom now prevailed
He and the little bird would never go back to that place again
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz on 27 January 1945.
Ashes to Ashes
Smoke
rises in the distance.
The boxcar
rocks,
rocks,
rocks;
stones
are placed along the ties.
Were they placed by Chance
or left
as gently as Kaddish.
I lift my hands in the darkness;
the light of the knothole
lights the tips of my fingers like Shabbat candles,
and I cover my eyes.
I can smell them,
the names
put in the furnace.
Silence screams out of the smoke stacks
as vowels burn away
as consonants try to escape the fire, flee
up the concrete throat and out
into the sky
escaping the camp disguised in grey coats of ash,
at last,
as winter covers the mirrors
of the lakes with ice.
Contest: Last Train to Auschwitz
Sponsor: Kai Michael Neumann
Brown and worn
She slowly trundled,
Carrying the tattered and torn
Clutching their bundle.
She leans to the right
And then the left,
In that pitiful night
Laying sleepers bereft.
All her metal and carriage
Held a thousand souls
Between their marriage
Of her red hot coals.
And the wooden doors weep
The iron locks, hold their breath
While she screeches on
In her role of death.
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.
THE SMOKESTACKS OF AUSCHWITZ
A trail of smoke fades to an autumn dawn,
as sounds of morning break unearthly still,
arising to the day, some life goes on,
while others have the fear it never will.
Some ashes drift about the morning air,
appearing as do snowflakes in a stall,
to restless breezes they drift everywhere
and they are spread about before they fall.
Each life that was, is slow in pure descent,
and longing for the earth turning below,
the mother of all life, where time is spent,
until time's all run out--it's time to go.
Down in the valley echoes from a train,
awhistling, here come the dead again.
© ron Wilson aka Vee Bdosa the Doylestown Poet
Starved of living
a life beleaguered
some welcome death
Visit To Auschwitz
I wish to hear the names long laid to rest
forgotten in their time, an empty prayer,
who wanted nothing more, through life's long quest
than just to know some good's alive somewhere;
their black and white of days, we'll never know,
wreak havok to the minds who hold back tears,
and though I hold them back, they have to flow
so they are not forgotten through the years.
I'd sing the children songs, if I could sing,
of life and love and better ways to be,
and if I thought my song would ever bring
one ray of hope, I'd sing til death of me!
But wordless are the songs, now echoing
from times when death was all a prayer could bring.
Aeiou.
© Ron Wilson Arbuthnot
aka Vee bBdosa the Doylestown Poet
THE SMOKESTACKS OF AUSCHWITZ
A trail of smoke fades to an autumn dawn
as sounds of morning break unearthly still
arising to the day, some life goes on
while others have the fear it never will.
Some ashes drift about the morning air
appearing as do snowflakes in a stall,
to restless breezes they drift everywhere
and they are spread about before they fall.
Each life that was is slow in pure descent
and longing for the earth that pounds below
the mother of all life, where time is spent,
until time's all run out--it's time to go.
Down in the valley echoes from a train
awhistling here come the dead again.
© Ron Arbuthnot aka ron wilson aka Vee Bdosa
Piano sheltered girls from being gassed
Instruments against Nazis play...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_Orchestra_of_Auschwitz
For the Single Crystalline Contest: "The Piano"
by Rick Parise
Not for them a soothing rattle
No vistas through a window pane,
Just packed inside, human cattle
Forced aboard that final train.
Oblivion their destination
A one way trip, no coming back,
In the darkness realisation
Prisoners now, on deaths own track.
Mothers soothing children's fears
Knowing fathers play the game,
A slowing train, the last stop nears
Their journey ended, midst the flames.
Entry for
Last Train to Auschwitz Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Kai Michael Neumann.
10/0412021
THE SMOKESTACKS OF AUSCHWITZ
A trail of smoke fades to an autumn dawn
as sounds of morning break unearthly still
arising to the day, some life goes on
while others have the fear it never will.
Some ashes drift about the morning air
appearing as do snowflakes in a stall,
to restless breezes they drift everywhere
and they are spread about before they fall.
Each life that was is slow in pure descent
and longing for the earth that pounds below
the mother of all life, where time is spent,
until time's all run out--it's time to go.
Down in the valley echoes from a train
awhistling here come the dead again.
Train whistle blew ending the hellish ride
An eerie silence then a hiss of steam
People in cattle trucks all crammed inside
It didn't seem real more like a bad dream.
Doors were opened people told to get out
Human beings; some carrying cases
"Get into a line" the soldiers would shout
A look of fear etched on people's faces.
The fit and the strong; they were selected
Families split up to the left or right
Unlucky ones gassed and then cremated
Powerless they were against Nazi might.
Some inmates of Auschwitz are still alive
But a million poor souls did not survive.
Written Friday 16th May 2020.
Family love is born in little rooms,
around sofas, settees, dinner plates,
with paternal bond that strengthens and grooms,
unswerving link that lasts till heaven’s gates!
We were such family in a French town,
traditional, true, religious us four,
mother was good at making wedding gowns,
father a decorator ran paint store!
Sister and I watched German troops on streets,
Tuesday August year nineteen forty three,
parents held us close, could hear their heartbeat,
that was the last day we would all be free!
Dragged on to street by the Nazi soldiers,
our father was punched kicked and beaten blue,
we wept helpless, clung to mother’s shoulders,
that was the last of our father we knew!
Pulled away from mother and Sis I cried,
screaming imploring, no mercy, no heart,
that day for me when humanity died,
was day my family was torn apart!
Packed in a train suffocating with stench,
alone defeated waited journey’s end,
with dead and dying that made stomach wrench,
four days of thirst and suffering to spend.
I remember that train to Auschwitz well,
journey that destroyed many lives like mine,
where our love and hope to tyranny fell,
to death we were paraded in a line!
Six months past we heard exchange of fire,
that made evil enemy pack and run,
We were all rescued from behind barbed wire,
was still hope and goodness under the Sun!
When God smiles he smiles generously well,
lifts suffering souls from bottomless pit,
That day he was smiling we could all tell,
his eyes perhaps gleaming and face well lit!
Each life and hope with dignity restored,
we were treated, bathed clothed and given food,
In room of people saw face I adored,
sobbing with outstretched arms my mother stood!
United with mother back to my house,
and years of togetherness we would share,
on the wall hangs our striped prisoner blouse,
to tell trappings of hatred and its snare!
The train to Auschwitz took many to death,
guilt ridden, to and fro ran that train,
but tracks remain, hate may creep back in stealth!
train to Auschwitz should never run again!
Premier contest 6th placement
Written 09/April/2021
10 syllables each line (PS syllable count)
based on a true story as related by a 93 yr old Auschwitz survivor
The last train to Auschwitz poetry competition
Kai Michael Neumann sponsored
~ from reality - brutal, cruel and poignant - love survived ~
Young Love In Auschwitz
Not into life too firm, and dying slow
before the years intended for death's claim,
youth wasted by the way she had to go,
she never had the chance to feel love's flame;
nor cast her flashing eyes in teasing's charm
to courting boys, who begged her company,
whom otherwise would keep her safe from harm
and far removed from how life had to be;
though spring was on, the time for love's sweet breath,
in hunger is a pain that stops love cold,
and in love's place the hope for instant death
was all that kept her here, and growing old.
Somewhere deep in her heart, his probing eyes
brought feeling her life couldn't recognize.
© Vee Bdosa the Doylestown Poet