大象传媒

This story was added to the People's War Site by a volunteer from Radio Newcastle on behalf of Vera Kulkarni. Vera Kulkarni is fully aware of the site's terms and conditions, and this story was added to the site with her permission.

Evacuation: Part Two
Dark Weekend

What if I had been born
a Jewish girl in Poland?
Then, in that same World War,
on a summer's day, as well
we'd be herded from the ghetto,
on a dark weekend
and, wearing my own red coat,
I'd be impelled to board a train
be packed into a cattle truck
and travel in the dark,
to struggle for air, for life
in a slow moving Hell;
to stumble out, at journey's end,
into comparative Heaven.

To sweet music - greenery,
ornate gates with iron, wrought
"Arbeit Macht Frei," brought
to the end of suffering -
to a Holiday Camp?
We'd have to stand in line,
women and children to the left,
men and older boys to the right.
Some of us would have wept
others smiled for joy.
They'd say we must strip -
warm showers, what bliss
to be clean at last.
And then,
they'd turn the taps.
Amen.

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