Black on white

[PrinceMyshkin]

Black-coated figures
on a field of white,
Sabbath khassidim
trudge their way
from Belz and Sarajevo
and Bergen-Belsen across
snow-capped Montreal streets
towards their makeshift synagogues
where I would neither be welcome
nor would I want to go.

Garish and Godless
in my browns and greens,
plaid, Polo, Geoffrey Beane,
I’d stand out amongst them
like a gaudy wound
on pale, tender flesh.

They carried their wounded,
useless God in pekelach1,
in cardboard and vinyl suitcases,
He who had stood patiently
among them in the line-up
for the Brause Bad2,
had inhaled the Zyklon-B
that poured from the shower-heads,
clawed with them for air,
died, and was incinerated,
black ash ascending
into white European clouds.

Here how visible they are
in their shtreimelach3
and their stark black coats
against the newly virgin snow.

1=little packages
2=shower-baths, as they were identified to those who had been consigned to be gassed
3=the round, fur-trimmed hats worn by the orthodox Hassidic men.

[Pendragon]

Separating then from now, mon ami, you present yourself as an unwashed heathen, but even so, they were not fools back then. They knew none ever returned from the "shower-bath." They marched to death as brave men and women. Had you been among them, you would have found yourself welcome, for they welcomed many who died beside them, for they took the words of Ecclesiastics, "There is a time and a place for all things..." and knew that if this was the time to die, have no grudge against any man by law of Moses, And with shalom on their lips, they died. I weep now, for my eyes have seen what they should have never seen, Hitler's own films of the mess. It's how I know they went bravely. And You would have been welcome there. Perhaps they cannot see your loving heart beneath the disguise. But it beats there. Shalom. Jerry. Shalom.

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l108/AbsalomKane/Smilies/Peace.gif

[SleepyWitch]

Separating then from now, mon ami, you present yourself as an unwashed heathen, but even so, they were not fools back then. They knew none ever returned from the "shower-bath." They marched to death as brave men and women. Had you been among them, you would have found yourself welcome, for they welcomed many who died beside them, for they took the words of Ecclesiastics, "There is a time and a place for all things..." and knew that if this was the time to die, have no grudge against any man by law of Moses, And with shalom on their lips, they died. I weep now, for my eyes have seen what they should have never seen, Hitler's own films of the mess. It's how I know they went bravely. And You would have been welcome there. Perhaps they cannot see your loving heart beneath the disguise. But it beats there. Shalom. Jerry. Shalom.

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l108/AbsalomKane/Smilies/Peace.gif

hum, I saw those films, too. but, to be honest, I think at least at the beginning, they really thought it was a shower. maybe later on, after lots of people had been killed, new arrivals somehow learned that they were going to be gassed. but at the beginning they certainly didn't and it's even more tragic because they trusted the Nazis enough to believe it was a shower


Garish and Godless
in my browns and greens,
plaid, Polo, Geoffrey Beane,
I’d stand out amongst them
like a gaudy wound
on pale, tender flesh.
survivors' guilt?

[PrinceMyshkin]

hum, I saw those films, too. but, to be honest, I think at least at the beginning, they really thought it was a shower. maybe later on, after lots of people had been killed, new arrivals somehow learned that they were going to be gassed. but at the beginning they certainly didn't and it's even more tragic because they trusted the Nazis enough to believe it was a shower


survivors' guilt?

Oh, my dear friend, Fraulein Pepperkakehus! I think I would treasure my friendship with you in any case, but that you are a daughter of the German nation who has taken in the facts of the past adds to my admiration of you.

Yes, of course at first - and for how long after that none of us can know - they thought it was going to be a genuine shower bath and possibly even that the camps were nothing more than a temporary wartime expediency... because who could have taken in that the entire structure of a contemporary, 'enlightened' nation was dedicated to the systematic wiping out of these people, many of whom were as proud or even more proud of being Germans as of being Jews!

"Survivors' guilt?" you ask. Why not? And survivors' trepidation because according to the Nuremburg Race Laws, even my darling children - NOT Jewish according to rabbinic law - would have been Jewish enough for the ovens according to the Nazis.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Separating then from now, mon ami, you present yourself as an unwashed heathen, but even so, they were not fools back then. They knew none ever returned from the "shower-bath." They marched to death as brave men and women.

In part I've already responded to this via Sleepywitch's comment. Did they march bravely? On the contrary many - even or especially among the surviving Jews - presumed to characterize them as lambs who went willingly to the slaughter... meaning I suppose that they ought barehanded to have fought against the might of the German armies!


Had you been among them, you would have found yourself welcome, for they welcomed many who died beside them, for they took the words of Ecclesiastics, "There is a time and a place for all things..." and knew that if this was the time to die, have no grudge against any man by law of Moses, And with shalom on their lips, they died.

That is your transcendent vision. I would prefer to think that insofar as they knew what lay ahead of them, they went to their deaths with a curse in their hearts, against the Nazis, against the Allies who might have done more to interrupt this and - above all - against God! For surviving Jews to continue to worship God as many of them do is, for me, the only blaspheny.


I weep now, for my eyes have seen what they should have never seen, Hitler's own films of the mess. It's how I know they went bravely. And You would have been welcome there. Perhaps they cannot see your loving heart beneath the disguise. But it beats there. Shalom. Jerry. Shalom.

Thank you. Shalom u'vracha (Peace & a blessing)

[Pendragon]

The total horror of the entire thing,
The marching in of lots of a fixed number,
The removal of their clothing,
final shred of human decency,
And the women running the gauntlet
Of the soldiers open stares and comments,
Into the "shower baths" men here, women there:
Then the merciless rain of Zyklon B
Which does not give an easy death--
The total horror of the whole thing
Is That This Was Just To Make It More Efficient!
Mein Gott in Himmel! Durchsatz in Tod!
That was all they were after!
Save bullets and get rid of the Jews faster!
Darf Gott für immer erbarmen

[PrinceMyshkin]

Thank you for this, dear friend!

[motherhubbard]

Jerry, it is too horrific to even accept and like a child I want to turn away and not know, but I do know. I think that this would could only be greater in your heart if you were there, but then again maybe not. How can this happen is a question with no satisfactory answer. Sometimes I wonder if things would be different today and I have to answer no. I think that may be the saddest part.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Jerry, it is too horrific to even accept and like a child I want to turn away and not know, but I do know. I think that this would could only be greater in your heart if you were there, but then again maybe not. How can this happen is a question with no satisfactory answer. Sometimes I wonder if things would be different today and I have to answer no. I think that may be the saddest part.

You are so tender-hearted, my dear friend! Maybe with a few more like yourself it could not have happened. Meanwhile you are raising your own small army of fighters for truth and peace and love.

[Granny5]

Jerry, this is beautiful and moving. It's important that anything continue to be written/shown about what happened. Some deny because it is too horrific to believe. But I know how true it all is. I had an Uncle who was with the troops during liberation and who cried decades afterwards when he remembered because man did such a thing to fellow man.....and women and babies.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Jerry, this is beautiful and moving. It's important that anything continue to be written/shown about what happened. Some deny because it is too horrific to believe. But I know how true it all is. I had an Uncle who was with the troops during liberation and who cried decades afterwards when he remembered because man did such a thing to fellow man.....and women and babies.

Thanks, Granny, thanks very much.