How windy it is today –
Blowing us off course as if to say
Don’t go there. You don’t want to see.
Yet we are teachers
We MUST see –
so that we can share.
We walk past the quote
Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
How do we help them remember?
How do we ensure it doesn’t happen again?
God help us all.
Sirens wail from the nearby city.
They cause me anxiety.
When will they stop?
And then I look around…
and remember where I am.
What haunted these prisoners?
Did dread become routine?
The crows in the fields are cawing
Pecking at the sandy soil –
Life must go on.
I walk on this modern path as I look at another-
The broken, rough path made of tombstones
How cruel to make them walk on their memorials-
The mind games,
the torture,
the death.
In full view, the crematorium stands erect-
Its telling chimney pointing skyward as if to say
This is your final destination.
Bodies stripped.
Stuffed.
Burned.
Ashes spread onto the SS fields or sold to farmers.
You are nothing but ash.
And I-
have no words left.
Walking away, the wind pushes us out.
Go, tell our story.
