# data[].attributes.body
“Refugee's Blues” by W.H. Auden is one of the most moving poems on the tragedy and the struggle of immigration. Written in 1940, it deals with the difficulties that Jewish refugees had to face in order to escape Nazism, but when I first read these lines I immediately felt like the author was talking about our current times: the poem is so actual and relevant it is quite shocking, and seeing the documentary about contemporary refugees made this feeling even stronger. Auden describes the racism and the fear that come when people talk about immigrants: “they will steal our daily bread” says the speaker in 1940, “they steal our jobs”, say people nowadays, it really seems nothing has changed.

The lines that struck me the most were:

“went to a committee; they offered me a chair;

asked me politely to return next year:

but where shall we go today, my dear, where shall we go today?”

The inhumanity of the political system and bureaucracy, which often seem to work against common sense and do not care about people's condition, is extremely appalling. Furthermore, the insecurity of the poet is heart-breaking: he and “his dear”don't know what to do or where to go, they have to live “one day at a time” without knowing what comes next, without any certainty or stability, an exhausting way of living.

# data[].attributes.body
“Refugee Blues” is a moving  documentary  poem written by the British author W.H. Auden in 1939.

From the visual point of view, the poem is composed by twelve tercets: in each stanza the first and the second verse rhyme, whereas every third line we can find the repetition of the words “my dear”: THESE POETIC DEVICES CERTAINLY SERVE THE PURPOSE OF MAKING THE POEM - WHICH IS AN INTENSE BLUES - MORE ENGAGING , AS IT ENTHRALLS THE READERS WITH ITS SOUND AND RHYTHM....

The poem deals with the plight of German Jews in the 1930s, right after the promulgation of racist laws.

Millions of Jews migrated in order to escape the Nazi persecution, however most of the countries refused to receive them and as a result many Jewish refugees were sent back.

The speaker  Poetic Voice is one of these Jews, who is speaking to addressing a companion, telling her about their pitiful condition: they are unable to enter the country since they don’t have a passport. The speaker  Poetic Voice strongly denounces the hypocrisy and the inhumanity of those countries, which could have saved many people, including him. This poem is extremely touching and thought-provoking, as the author is able to make the reader aware of the miserable condition of Jews at that time. We can empathise with the poetic voice and understand his feelings of being unwelcome and subject to discrimination.

# data[].attributes.body
"Refugee Blues" by W.H. Auden is a poem written in 1939 and it describes the difficulties of a couple of Jews during the Nazism. It conveys sufferance and a sense of isolation. The poetic voice explains that Jewish people felt like there was no place for them in the world and they were not considered human beings. Even animals were in a better situation than them, for example birds and fish.
This poem is still really meaningful, not only because it is fundamental to remember what happened to Jews and all the victims of the WWII, but also because we can find many common points with today's issues. As we can see in the video, nowadays migration is a serious problem. Since there are many migrants and we have difficulties to host them, we tend to forget the human aspect of the problem. Too often we consider the situation only in terms of numbers and we don't remember that we are talking about people who don't have a safe place to go. It is fundamental to read this poem making an effort to empathize with those who are rejected by everybody only because they are considered different.
Therefore the message conveyed by the author is universal and can be applied on different contexts.

# data[].attributes.body
Written by W.H.Auden in 1939, "Refugee Blues" is a not just a poem, but it is the manifesto of the silence of fear that all the Jewish had experienced during the Nazi occupation. Even if the title could be linked to a pleasant song, the main theme could just make the reader crying out all his tears. Indeed ten millions souls are suffering this torture: living in holes because there's no place for them. This is  how Jewish were considered from German people, as if they were so differet from each other. In addition, these poor souls without peace had no way to escape from death, even if a passport could have given them the illusion to escape from their faith. In addition, the author describes the situation deeply, so that the reader could empathize with the poor Jewish, innocents who found death by hand of Nazis. Thanks to him,  we can entirely understand how they lived, how they felt And how they were:  just humans.

# data[].attributes.body
This poem, "Refugee Blues" by WH Auden was written in 1939 and refers to the conditions of Jewish refugees and their hardship in finding refuge in Europe during the holocaust. The use of the word refugee implies that the poem is about a group of people attempting to escape their country, nazi Germany, but can not, due to the fact that they do not own passports.
The POETIC VOICE of this poem is one of the many Jews that were killed by the Nazis....
The poem deals with the abuse of human right, the suffering of all refugees and the harsh realities of war: the poet portrays the wastefulness of war through the use of repetition, emphasis and imagery.

The poem is extremely deep and sad. In reading it, the reader is able to empathize and imagine the situation in his/her mind, drawn by the words of the poet.
In addition, Auden's topic can be considered current, since our society still discriminates and have many prejudices against immigrants.

# data[].attributes.body
Refugee blues

The poem was written in 1939, at  the beginning of WW II, by W. H. Auden, when he was moving to New York.

There is a wide range of powerful imagery used to build up the overall picture.

The poem has an effect beyond the apparent simplicity of its message and it gains in power from the musical form and the ideas within it.

This is a poem about the plight of a specific group of refugees displaced and arriving in a country that is generally hostile to their situation: Auden focuses on the German Jews arriving in the UK at that time.
This poem IS 'FOOD FOR THOUGHT': IT MAKES us think, because it deals with an actual situation, the situation of MIGRANTS, who nowadays are discriminated. This topic should make everyone think (about it), in order to delete prejudices.
By reading the poem, the reader can understand that the (narrator) POETIC VOICE fixes about his personal experience, because Auden (was) LOVED a Jewish person who escaped from the Nazi regime.
What strucks me the most is how the (narrator) POETIC VOICE describes the scene: he wants to give us the most realistic picture of the message he wants to send. He wants to make us think about the injustices AGAINST these poor innocent people.

# data[].attributes.body
‘Refugee Blues’ is a really moving and captivating piece of work which deserves to be read with a lot of attention. It focuses on some very interesting and important topics such as migrations, refugees’ life and their willing to be heard, no matter what.
In the first place, the video explains and emphasizes the refugees' situation.
They’re considered like garbage, many people want them dead. The society sees them as a threat instead of a GREAT help TO BE GRATEFUL OF. They treat them as foreigners: bad people capable of stealing and killing instead of treating them as people. In fact, the only thing they ask for is TO BE considered as people, humans, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters who deserve to be heard and who deserve to live and work in this world just like everyone else.

Moreover, we see that the poem cites Hitler, and WE CAN compare our Refugees to Jews during (the) World War II: we must say, the similarities between them are clear. They both were and are discriminated by the society and by the authorities for no reason, just because they were AND ARE ‘different’. It’s true, maybe they were and they are different, they had and they have a different skin colour, a different religion and a different culture, but it’s also true that at the end of the day, they're not that different from the rest of us, IN THAT WE ARE ALL HUMAN BEINGS.
At the end of the day, we’re all the same and we all live on the same Planet.

In my opinion, society must forget about differences and start focusing on team work and, most of all, integration.

# data[].attributes.body
“Refugee blues” is a poem written by Auden at the beginning of the Second World War. It deals with the topic of the flight of many Jews during (the) Hitler's Nazi dictatorship, in particular (of their) the terrible situations that they lived in this period.
The fact that struck me most in the negative, is the indifference of the people, who looked without acting, or condemned these people in difficulty without knowing their real situation.
(These people) Jews were considered inferior also to animals only for their origin. But the thing that makes me think even more is that this theme is extremely current and that even today there are people who are rejected for their different origins.
This poem touched me a lot, in fact Auden with simple words made me perceive the pain and the suffering that the Jews felt during (these) those extremely difficult years.

# data[].attributes.body
This documentary poem - “Refugee Blues” - is extremely touching and (though) thought-provoking. The narrative poetic voice in the video-documentary poem is Noah, a refugee from Uganda. He is reading the poem of W. H Auden, written in 1939 about Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. The imperfect Noah’s English accent is combined to a sort of female voice, which is not properly (sining) singing, but it is as if she (is) were yelling for all the pain and sufferance of these refugees. The combination of (this) these two elements, with the deeply powerful images of the refugee camp outside Calais, moved me to tears. Indeed, it made me reflect on our modern reality, on the nowadays (’s) situation of the refugees. We can say that it is not so different (to) from eighty-one years ago. Even if it extremely alarming and sad, I truly believe that it is like that.

The images of the different faces and hands worn-out by the hard work are stuck in my mind. As a result of the impact of these images, I remembered the face of this black man that was on a bus in Berlin, sitting near me and Francesca. We were speaking (in) Italian and this man recognized our accent. As a consequence, he asked us whether we were Italian, and then he said: “La mia terra, il mio paese”. I was moved, because he was not born in Italy and he (had not) didn't have  a perfect accent, but he said it with such (a) conviction, he (has) had (the) tears in his eyes and I think that he was more Italian than some people that (are) were really born in Italy, but that do not feel the same sense of belonging.

I will never (forgot) forget those words and I hope that one day everyone will learn that immigrants are not bad people, they are not in our country in order to steal our work. On the contrary, they are good people, who are migrating to another land in order to have a better life. They are survivors, they are warriors and we should respect them, like they respect us.

# data[].attributes.body
A specific part of Refugee Blues shocked me: when the poetic voice says that animals are loved better than refugees; their owners care about them, but they are not near the Jews. This image, like others in the poem, shows exactly how Jews were treated during Hitler’s dictatorship and WWII.

Auden describes many situations to prove the conditions that probably we couldn’t imagine. This sufferance could be compared to what is happening nowadays: refugees are not accepted when they change country to look for new opportunities, for their differences from the point of view of culture, traditions, religion, language...

What I really want to say is that the phenomenon of migration has always existed, because human beings need to move and to change. Moreover migration is a consequence of colonialism: we know that many countries are underdeveloped because of exploitation and oppression from colonizers, so many poor exploited people want to change their life for many reasons, like job, war and difficult climate conditions, and they absolutely have to be granted the possibility to do it.

# data[].attributes.body
Refugee blues is a poem written in 1939 by W.H. Auden. The poem is spoken by a Jewish refugee living in New York, who is addressing his lover and reflecting on the fact that he, and many other refugees in a similar position, are not made welcome in the city. In the meanwhile it raises broader questions about isolation, loneliness, and exile. Indeed the writer is able to describe the trauma and pain of being forced to leave home and of being unable to find a place of safety and security in a violent and uncertain world. The poem uses the speaker’s despair and frustration to convey the loneliness, pain, and sense of stagnancy that accompany exile.Throughout “Refugee Blues,” the speaker’s mood is bleak and mournful: he feels loneliness and profoundly lonely. He shares a message about some relevant social issues and social injustice, lack of solidarity and homelessness. The presence of the refrain gives a rythme that make the emotional impact on the readers stronger and remind us of a song. I think that this poem is heartbreaking and chilling but it is able to remind human beings the worst things and actions they can do when they fight one against each other.

# data[].attributes.body
"Refugee Blues" is a poem written by W.H. Auden in 1939. The poem dramatically describes the condition of the Jews in Europe overwhelmed by Hitler's madness, highlighting the indifference towards the sufferings of the Jews.

There is the Nazi regime, with its violence against Jews and there is the less explicit anti-Semitism of countries who use immigration quotas to exclude Jews: these countries have the power to help, but they refuse to do so. Therefore, they are complicit in the Jews' suffering and mass murder.

Hitler has taken power in Germany and believes Jews “must die. In this poem, the speaker does not find refuge elsewhere: without the documentation, the speaker is unable to enter the country, that could save the speaker’s life.

At the opening of the poem, the speaker complains "there is no place for us, my dear", even if the "city" in which they are found has managed to find houses for "ten million" people. Indeed, city inhabitants seem more willing to help the animals of these refugees: they give comfort and welcome to cats, they even dress their dogs: they act as if the lives of animals were more precious to them than the lives of the Jews.

As a result, the speaker is isolated and trapped between countries without a clear sense of home.

From this poem I perceived a feeling of abandonment and despair, I was struck by the sense of pain that the poet transmitted within the text and the great strength he had to be able to denounce this tragic situation of indifference and inhumanity on the part of each one.

# data[].attributes.body
“For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?”-W.H. Auden

This quotation, which opens the short documentary, is extremely meaningful and can briefly sum up the author’s message and the current situation we are living.

Auden is a British revolutionary poet, who dealt ,in his poem ‘Refugee Blues’ , with the escape of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany during World War II; he personally experienced Nazism when he left the U.S. In the poem, the leading character is a German Jew, who is speaking to a companion about their terrible living conditions.

This poem deals with a current topic, which still in 2020 happens regularly. People from poor and underdeveloped countries, where safety is precarious because of wars or conflicts, leave them in the hope of saving their lives. However, escaping from their own country is often more dangerous. Refugees aren’t usually welcomed: they are not considered as citizens and they are always seen as strangers. In addition to that, prejudice and violence are aways present as for Jewish refugees in Auden’s poem.

Calais is a city in the north of France, which is well-known for its proximity to England and its “jungle”. The documentary indeed shows us the numerous encampment in that particular part of France. Refugees , especially years ago, tried to leave France and go to England so to find a job and have a better life.

# data[].attributes.body
“Refugee Blues” was written by the British poet W.H. Auden. First published in 1939, on the eve of World War II, the poem meditates on the plight of Jewish refugees, who were forced to flee Nazi Germany, but they were unable to find refuge elsewhere. This poem is about the fear and desperation of being a refugee. The speaker, who is one of these Jews, is terrified of returning to Germany, but he's also unable to find a safe place elsewhere. In the poem, there are some contrasting images which are meant to emphasise the message. In line 2, the contrast between "mansions" and "holes" refers to the gap between the rich and the poor; in lines 11 and 12, the refugees are considered dead by the government of their country even though they are alive in body; from line 22 to 24 the contrast is between the way pets are treated and the hostility their owners show towards the refugees.
The stanza form is regular, the whole poem is written in tercets; the rhyme scheme is AAB and regular as well. There is the presence of a refrain, "my dear", which is repeated in the third line of each stanza.
In the poem, what struck me the most is the way the narrator describes this sense of being unwelcome and persecuted; indeed, the inhumanity with which Jews were treated during those times is already well known nowadays, but this poem highlights what these people must have felt, when they had no place to call home, nowhere to go and no one to turn to.

# data[].attributes.body
Although Refugee Blues was written in 1939, it deals with a particularly current theme: migration. This poem was written in the tragic period when many Jews fled their land, seeking refuge in America,however the poem can easily be re-proposed nowadays.

The verses highlight the selfishness and apathy of mankind, which turns out to be extremely cruel.

Men rely on bureaucracy (''Old passports can't do that'' or ''If you've got no passport, you're officially dead'') or they create terrible groundless prejudices like ''If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread''. The same situation occurs today with millions of people who land every day on the Italian coasts and do not receive adequate attention, in Greece, where immigrants cannot touch the peninsula, or in America, where the president had announced his intention to build an anti-immigration wall. The topicality of the problem is also demonstrated through the video that personally made me goosebumps.

The moving music, the narrative voice and the images of many people in difficulty made me perceive that man is not able to break down the wall of prejudices, but continues incessantly to make the same mistakes throughout history.I think the most moving and symbolic scene of the video is that of the child who makes a kite fly, while the narrator says. '' We are still alive''.That means that we must do something because these people,are human beings.

In the same years as Auden's poetry,Charlie Chaplin said, ''Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance.'' Personally I think it still needs to start.

# data[].attributes.body
"Refugee Blues" is a poem that was written at the beginning of WWII. 81 years have passed since the beginning of the war, but what seems not to have changed is the theme of the poem that reflects our nowadays society.
We still act as if migrants should be rejected because considered dangerous and dreadful.
I think nothing will change if we keep mistrusting people just because we judge them at first sight.
Reading the poem has a huge impact on the reader, it gives an insight on what life was like during Nazi dictatorship.
The voice of Noah though makes the poem tougher because images help conveying this idea of migrants rejection.

# data[].attributes.body
Refugee Blues was written in 1939 by W.H. Auden who dealt with the escape of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany.
Even if this poem was written at the beginning of the Second World War, his theme is (modern and) contemporary because nowadays people still have to escape from their countries in order to survive.
Moreover, nowadays migrants who arrive from countries at war, countries where human ('s) rights are not respected, are still rejected by other countries, which could help them.
So, now the questions are: "Have we really understood our past mistakes?", "Have we really evolved?" and "Is racism really gone?". We should welcome them, we should help those people who left their home and their country in order to survive. We should accept them because they are Human Beings, too. We should be different from Hitler or from countries which didn't help Jewish refugees only because they didn't want to antagonize Germany.
Another very important and contemporary point is the idea that beaurocracy is something useless, it is something that doesn't allow you to make a real decision, a decision on time. For Jewish refugees not having a passport meant death, because other countries wouldn't help them because of bureaucracy.
(In our small), ON A SMALL SCALE, even today, ("thanks") DUE TO to Covid-19 we can see the pointlessness of bureaucracy that doesn't help to manage this difficult situation.

# data[].attributes.body
In the poem ‘Refugee Blues’, the author meditates on Hitler’s dictatorship and the escape of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. It was written by H. Auden in 1939, when he moved to New York in order to start a new life. The situation in the city must have influenced his work, indeed HIS poem is CONVEYED by a Jewish refugee living in New York who is addressing his lover and reflecting on the fact that refugees, who are forced to flee Germany, are unable to find a safe refuge elsewhere because the world appears to them as cruel and uncertain. Therefore, the poem deals with the isolation and discrimination of Jewish people and it gives considerations regarding the trauma and the pain of those people being forced to leave the country and the place where they have always lived, sometimes their friends, their workplace and so on. What  strucks me the most is the way the author describes this situation: his words are so harsh, but sadly true. He gives us a complete view on the tragedy that these poor and innocent people had to face at the time. And, as we know, it was only the beginning: later, Hitler's Nazism became stricter and, in my opinion, the cruellest of all time.

# data[].attributes.body
REFUGEE BLUES
This poem, written by Auden during the Nazi dictatorship, deals with a topic that is unfortunately still present in our society: the problem of marginalisation and hate towards people who are considered “different” from us and live in terrible conditions because nobody helps them. In 1939, when “Refugee Blues” was published, it referred to the persecuted Jews during Hitler’s regime; instead, nowadays this poem could perfectly describe THE migrants’ situation, as the real images of the video show. The voice of Noah, a refugee himself who recites the poem, makes these stanzas even more thought-provoking, because we can recognise in it the sorrow he and too many innocents feel. However, there is still hope in the smile of the child who appears in the video; hope for a future that will not look like 1939 or 2020, if all of us will engage to make it better.

# data[].attributes.body
The poem Refugee Blues was written in 1939 by W. H. Auden, therefore during the second World War and it is about the terrible condition of Jews, who were discriminated, hated and not free. However, this poem is extremely current, and the video does a brilliant job in showing us why through the images of refugees, poor or discriminated people. The poem is read by Noah, who is a refugee himself, and through his soothing voice, he conveys all his emotions. Indeed, the combination of the images and Noah’s voice results in a striking, gut-wrenching short film. The part that struck me the most was when Noah pronounced the line “but we are still alive, my dear, we are still alive”, and the video showed a happy boy, who was flying a kite. It made me realize that we don’t always appreciate how lucky we are, but we should learn from this boy, who is probably very poor, doesn’t have a home, isn’t free, but he still finds a reason to be happy.

# data[].attributes.body
Refugee Blues is certainly one of the most touching poems read so far, because it deals with a particularly sad theme that after many years still makes people think, but the thing that strikes me the most is, unfortunately, how current it actually is. As we can see from the video where Noah, a refugee, recites the poem, the situation experienced by the Jews during World War II can be perfectly comparable to that of the migrants of our times. The Jews had the same problems of marginalisation and the same difficulties in reaching the salvation that migrants have today, but the most puzzling thing to me is that in 2020 the human race is making the same mistakes of the last century. Today our governments are not willing to exterminate entire ethnic groups, but is there a real difference between killing a population using gas chambers and letting boats sink with 300 men, women and children fleeing their countries in the hope of finding a better life elsewhere? I don’t see all that difference.

# data[].attributes.body
Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.
‎
Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.
‎
In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,
Every spring it blossoms anew;
Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.
‎
The consul banged the table and said:
‎'If you've got no passport, you're officially dead';
But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.
‎
Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;
Asked me politely to return next year:
But where shall we go today, my dear, but where shall we go today?
‎
Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said:
‎'If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread';
He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.
‎
Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;
It was Hitler over Europe, saying: 'They must die';
We were in his mind, my dear, we were in his mind.
‎
Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
Saw a door opened and a cat let in:
But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.
‎
Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay,
Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:
Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.
‎
Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;
They had no politicians and sang at their ease:
They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race.
‎
Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,
A thousand windows and a thousand doors;
Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.
‎
Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;
Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:
Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.‎

# data[].attributes.headline
WYSTAN HUGH AUDEN AND THE 'COMMITTED WRITERS'

# data[].attributes.subject
WYSTAN HUGH AUDEN AND THE 'COMMITTED WRITERS'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
22 November, 2019 by Dave Bonta - 2 Comments - Posted in Videopoems

This 2016 film co-directed by Stephan Bookas and Tristan Dawes moved me to tears. That's how effective, and affecting, I found this juxtaposition of W. H. Auden's poem ( text here) about Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany-read by a man identified only as Noah, a refugee and former child soldier from Uganda-with excellent documentary footage of contemporary refugees. Here's the official synopsis from Bookas' website:

Set to the verses of W.H. Auden's 1939 poem, the multi-award winning "Refugee Blues" charts a day in 'the jungle', the refugee camp outside Calais. More intimate and unlike much of what has been seen in the mass media, this documentary poem counterpoints the camp's harsh reality of frequent clashes with the French riot police with its inhabitants' longing for a better future.

On Vimeo, Bookas includes a mini essay about the making of the film, which I found illuminating in its suggestion of how documentary poetry can differ from journalism. This was something I'd been thinking about because I recently attended a reading and slideshow from another documentary poetry project, which was a collaboration between a poet and a photojournalist: Julia Spicher Kasdorf and Steven Rubin's Shale Play: Poems and Photographs from the Fracking Fields. Technically, Auden's poem by itself would not be considered an example of documentary poetry, but as a filmpoem Refugee Blues certainly would qualify, in my opinion. Anyway, I hope Mr. Bookas won't mind my quoting a sizable chunk of his post:

We didn't set out to make a film at first - that idea came later - we just packed a car full of blankets, clothes, food and other items and went, not fully knowing what to expect. But of course, being filmmakers, we also brought along our cameras - to see if we might have the opportunity to document, to capture, to find the human story in all the chaos that was so ubiquitous in the media at the time.

Soon after our arrival, we found the people living at the refugee camp to be very warm and welcoming, as long as we assured them we weren't news-gathering journalists.

We didn't film anything to begin with and just walked around, introduced ourselves as documentary filmmakers and listened to people and their stories. Every single one of them was unique and heartbreaking.

Following these discussions, we asked if it would be alright to take out our cameras and start filming. For the most part the answer was a resounding yes.

We spent the following days exploring the camp and talking to people, discussing the situation and the political climate and spending time with them, being invited for coffee and food and allowed to film elements of their daily lives. This turned out to be the calm before the storm, as things culminated in a clash between the camp's inhabitants and the French riot police on the road leading to the ferry terminal, symbolic for the plight of the refugees and their struggle against institutional powers they are unable to defend themselves against. [...]

Of course, our film can't possibly even begin to try and unravel all the lives and personal fates entangled within this crisis. But in some small way, and for us especially, it has given this tragedy a face that's less abstract, more relatable, more human.

Read the full post (including complete credits).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
22 November, 2019 by Dave Bonta - 2 Comments - Posted in Videopoems This 2016 film co-directed by Stephan Bookas and Tristan Dawes moved me to tears. That's how effective, and affecting, I found this juxtaposition of W. H.

# data[].attributes.headline
W.H. Auden's "Refugee Blues": let's try 'argumentation'!

# data[].attributes.subject
W.H. Auden's "Refugee Blues": let's try 'argumentation'!

# data[].attributes.body
Students: can you state 3 reasons why we should study and analyse this Poem?
SINCE... (r1. + r2. + r3.)

THEREFORE...

# data[].attributes.body
REFUGEE BLUES – W.H. AUDEN

“If we let them in, they will steal our bread:

he was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.”

Written in 1940, “Refugee Blues” remains to this day one of the most powerful poems on the tragedy of Shoah. The poem is given voice in first person by a Jew refugee who escapes Nazi Germany with his beloved one, and finds himself wandering without a destination, rejected by every individual he meets on their way.

When I first read the poem, the first thing that immediately struck me was the idea of silent acceptance. The poor man knows that he and his people have done nothing wrong and hat they are just as equal as the others and still, he accepts his fate and resignedly leaves his whole life behind, looking for salvation.

What I believe Auden wanted to convey with his poem was the humanity of these people. Through words, he brings back the humanity of which they had been stripped by the Nazi Regime.

Therefore, the poem is nothing but a bitter denunciation of the indifference of Humankind towards those fellow Human Beings who suffer.

Another aspects that deeply disturbed me was the relevance and actuality of Auden's words. It is shocking and frankly also scary how nowadays we are still hearing those words so full of hatred and fear. Auden's poem is the ultimate proof that history must not be forgotten, if Humankind wants to develop a better accepting and more harmonious society.

# data[].attributes.body
Refugee blues - W.H. Auden
The first thing I noticed while I was watching the short film is that the poem “Refugee blues” is read by a man who hasn’t got British accent. The producer chose him on purpose, the pronunciation is foreign.

Auden’s work is actualised, even though it deals with Hitler and Nazism the scenes represent nowadays refugees (I thought about Calais in France or hotspots built on Greek islands).

The message is clear: FOREIGNERS are not accepted in other countries as it HAD happened before, during WWII.

They try to PROTEST, but it is useless, sometimes communication is impossible. They are considered different and inferior.

The image of the sea with its beautiful but dangerous waves is both at the beginning and end of the video. If I focus on it, I see its meaning: the oceans separate one continent from the other, in some cases it represents the only means of escape.

A boat trip hides tears and fears, but also hopes: at the end of it, a refugee is safe, at the very beginning of a new life.  He/she has been brave enough to try to start over. Of course, it is full of pain and issues, but there are other opportunities, to discover and live them is the key.
Therefore I can affirm that the poem can be interpreted and actualized in many situations. I believe that it is full of hope and it should be read by every refugee or man/woman who is seeking his/her way.