Starvation Camp in Poland, 1941–>Fast-forward to Gaza, 2024
POETRY FORMAT, 18 Mar 2024
Wisława Szymborska – TRANSCEND Media Service
A Cry from the Szebnie Concentration Camp, 1941, Poland
“A poem written by Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) about the Szebnie concentration camp in Jasło (southern Poland), which held Polish Jews, Romani people, and Soviet prisoners of war from 1941 until the camp was liberated by the Red Army in September 1944. Brutal, horrible violence was inflicted by the Nazis at Szebnie, particularly against the thousands of Jews who were killed there in mass executions. Szymborska’s poem, does not flinch from the wretchedness surrounding her, nor from the possibility of humanity for which she yearned.” — Vijay Prasad
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Write it down. Write it. With ordinary ink
on ordinary paper: they weren’t given food,
they all died of hunger. All. How many?
It’s a large meadow. How much grass
per head? Write down: I don’t know.
History rounds off skeletons to zero.
A thousand and one is still only a thousand.
That one seems never to have existed:
a fictitious foetus, an empty cradle,
a primer opened for no one,
air that laughs, cries, and grows,
stairs for a void bounding out to the garden,
no one’s spot in the ranks.
It became flesh right here, on this meadow.
But the meadow’s silent, like a witness who’s been bought.
Sunny. Green. A forest close at hand,
with wood to chew on, drops beneath the bark to drink –
a view served round the clock,
until you go blind. Above, a bird
whose shadow flicked its nourishing wings
across their lips. Jaws dropped,
teeth clattered.
At night a sickle glistened in the sky
and reaped the dark for dreamed-of loaves.
Hands came flying from blackened icons,
each holding an empty chalice.
A man swayed
on a grill of barbed wire.
Some sang, with dirt in their mouths. That lovely song
about war hitting you straight in the heart.
Write how quiet it is.
Yes.
Gaza Strip Mar 2024 – Children starving to death by Israeli Zionist forces – Nazism Redux
Tags: Colonialism, Concentration Camps, Crimes against Humanity, Ethnic Cleansing, Gaza, Genocide, Genocide Convention, Germany, Hamas, International Court of Justice ICJ, Israel, Israeli occupation, Jews, Massacre, Nazism, Palestine, Poland, Romani People, USA, United Nations, WWII, War crimes, West Bank
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 18 Mar 2024.
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