Sitting there

Smiles across their face

Eyes filled with happiness and joy

So much to live for

So much to see

1933:

Sitting there 

Smiles are smaller

Happiness and joy still in their eyes

So much to live for 

So much to see

1935:

Sitting there

Smiles have faded

Eyes are deathly blank

Yet so much to live for 

So much to see

1937:

Sitting there in a labor camp

Lips curved down, smiles are gone

Eyes are filled with fear and horror

Yet so much to live for

So much to see

 

1939: 

Sitting there in a labor camp

No smiles only depressed faces

Eyes are filled with tears, those tears shedding

Nothing to live for

So much to see

1940:

Lying deathly ill in a labor camp

No energy left to make a face

Eyes are only to be filled with the angel of death

Nothing to live for

No will to see much more

The horror ended

For most

But not for all

One man sits

With sunken cheeks

And dead eyes

And an open mouth stuck in an eternal scream

Too weak to move

Too sick to survive

Without the knowledge that he was free

He sits with a foggy brain

In the camps he worked

For hours on end, digging graves

For his friends

In the camps he froze

Out in the cold

With clothes thinner than a sheet

In the camps he starved

Never any edible food

Never enough water

In the camps he became diseased

Lice riddled his body

Typhus riddled his head

In the camps he obeyed

All the Nazi orders

Even the most insane 

In the camps he lived

Determined to survive

In spite of Hitler

And he survived the camps

He survived Hitler

He made it through the darkest night

But when the bright sun rose

He was too sick to move to the comforting shade

All he could do was look right at it

And close his eyes 

Jews old and young

Are starving

Little food was given

And no medical supplies provided

Although they would risk their lives

Some non-Jewish Poles

Helped them

Still 100,000 of those Jews died

How many were children?

So many bodies

So many futures

Ended prematurely

Bodies

Now just a pile of bones

Because it wasn't enough to imprison them

They were murdered to

 

Death by gas

Hanging

    Starvation

Disease

    Overwork

Unethical

Unruly

Unjustified

Unnecessary

Deaths 

Corpses dismembered 

And burned

Ashed and bones 

Thrown in piles

Or pits

Lives forgotten

Gone

Forever

Running, 

From what?

Brutality?

Fear?

You push forth your children

Protecting, 

From what?

Starvation?

Abuse?

You all continue to go

Why?

Escape?

Unity?

Safety?

Where are you walking?

You are boxed,

Into this horrible place

You can run, but you will only reach 

More barbed wire

Ripping flesh and dreams.

Always moving

Avoiding 

Saving 

 Always 

Houses collapse

Souls escape 

Crushed bodies

Hitler’s brainwashed

Return to erase 

The litter

Given a one bucket for the hundred people squeezed into the stuffy metal container, our headed location:unknown. 

Diseased

Queasy

Hurt,

but not crying I stood on the side of this death cart not knowing what will happen to me

my children

or wife.

 The faceless cries throughout the box echoed against nothing, above my lice filled hair a hatch lay untouched.

Curiosity beseeched me as my boiling muscles forced me to pull on the cool window. A punch of air blasted throughout the entire cart as sighs of relief, happiness, and joy were prevalent throughout the box.

For a brief moment I had smiled

been given hope, for this was the first air or sunlight anyone of us hundred had been given for about two days. 

This waft of brilliance lasted only a minute as I crept my head out the hot stuffy car to see just exactly where we were, but al that was around for hundreds of miles was a huge iron arc saying one thing. 

Work will set you free.

so serious and dismal,

burdened with drooping lids

and mouths grimmer

than Greek tragedy. 

Split from mothers and fathers,

blindly spotted in striped jackets,

these children stopped awaiting

play, but work,

friends, but mere contacts,

benefactors, but enemies,

once wired in

by black thorns

strewn by the unfabling Wolf,

the cruel boundary line

between youthful fantasy

and hopeless nightmare.

#WeRemember

Parades down a street

Lined with credulous spectators

As the pounding grows near

And the crowd begins to roar

Figures emerge from the line between sky and street

Their uniform coasts encase their frames

And hefty black boots swallow their feet

And tight red bands wrap their forearm

And the flags

The red flags

Stuck high in the air

With a square like shape in the center

And they wave

They wave with pride

They wave with success

They wave with strength

And they wave

They wave with death

They wave with torture

They wave with starvation

And they wave

They hold them high

Higher than the worth of the Jew

Higher than the promise of a child

And they will not let them fall 

White dresses, 

Hands lifted against a sky,

As blue as their eyes

None of them with an opinion,

Only caring about going home,

What was for dinner,

Is only just a name

It’s not until years down the road

They will find out the meaning

Of what they are saying,

The name they are chanting,

Using in their prayers

Because,

They don’t teach you 

That in school

Running from a gruesome town       

Where people only live for death      

Until they take their final breath        

A mother, a father, a child to 

Was caught running from the Nazis crew 

They held their hands up to the sky 

That’s when bullets started to fly 

A merciless man barret in black 

Shot the mother in the back 

The rest of their family was killed at will 

Without a one single shrill 

One survivor yet to see

Lived in fear, even as she was free

I imagine, 

Would be in a serene and traditional cemetery

Surrounded by the graves of my predecessors.

I would have died a peaceful death,

Given a lovely funeral

And my loved ones would always remember the day I crossed over,

Praying to God to keep their faith alive.

My resting place

I realize, 

Is in the middle of nowhere

Surrounded by people I do not know, whose ribs you can see through their skin.

I will die a painful but quick death, a bullet to my brain to be exact,

Given nothing but a dirty look

And my loved ones not knowing what’s happening

Praying to God that I am still alive.  

My resting place, 

I stand in now, 

Is nothing but a poorly dug, six foot hole

Surrounded by a guard who stands on higher ground, and barks orders.

I will die, but at least the pain will be gone, 

Given nothing but blisters and frostbite,

And my loved ones doing who knows what, 

I pray to God I die. 

Huddling together to stay warm 

Destroying people 

Down to the bone 

Just enough 

To kill them. 

All because 

They weren't like the rest of you 

¨The Perfect Race¨

With blonde hair 

blue eyes 

Non Jewish 

 They never got touched. 

Why? 

For what reason? 

Dehumanizing people

By the second 

For what?

I will give you my name

My identity 

Because work will set me free

You will take my belongings 

Take my pride

Take my future

Because work will set me free

I will let them starve me

I will let them take my personality

They can take my loved ones

Because work will set me free

What they tell me, i will do

What they make me become, i will become

They will make a better me

Because work will set me free

They changed my name, for im a number now

They killed my family, i'm the only one left

But i will not fret, because they make me think, they make me believe 

That work will set me free

Do you know what they’re talking about?

I don’t.

It looks pretty serious, don't you think?

The boy on the left and the girl, I think they’re siblings.

Yeah, the Scholls right?

Maybe. They seem kind of standoffish. 

I wonder what they want with Probst.

Maybe we’ll find out sometime. 

C’mon let’s get to class.

Yeah, might as well...

as tears begin to fall.

I’m alone.

The people I thought I knew

Shout in triumph.

And I follow.

Where has my strength gone?

My arm raises, 

trembling more within 

every passing second.

I want to stand tall,

with my hands by my side.

But I can’t.

Where has my strength gone?

My hopes for a better future

diminish as he rolls by

in his chariot of protection,

all the while a boy 

labelled by a blue star

is being beat across the street.

Where has my strength gone?

Will I ever be forgiven

by neighbors and childhood friends

for all I’ve done to help them:

Nothing.

But I just can’t seem to move.,

so I stand with my hand in the air.

Where has my strength gone?

The Scholl siblings stand on a hill

Posing for a family photo

Just before the wave of despair washes them out.

Soon divided into two,

Boys at one place, girls at the other

Little chance that they’ll ever cross paths again.

No real sign of how long they have to live

Just luck
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