Several years ago I was in Prague staying with a friend who lives there.. He invited me for a trip out to a place called Terezin . It is a walled town, and was used for imprisonment in both World Wars .. the Nazis used it in the 2nd War to house Jews, dissidents and Resistance fighters.. Many died of sickness and disease in the terrible and overcrowded situations, many were shot or killed , and thousands took the journey from here to the Extermination sites..

I went to the Museum , a simple place that deeply affected me, with it’s children art  and photograhs and accounts of the horrors that took place here and in other places …  A remarkable matter is that the Jews being held here established their own council to make representations and deal with matters of concern , but also many of the very gifted captives used their talent in artistically creative ways 

 

O Terezin

You place of sin

Of death and degradation

Holding place

For terror camps

For Jewish execution

“ The Final Solution

Of the Jewish Question”

Young and old

Side by side

Unaware of genocide

Children leapfrog

Bulldog

Hopscotch

Into fratricide

O Terezin

Fortress camp

Served as Jewish ghetto

Stipulating

Concentration

For mass extermination

Demonic torment

Brutal treatment

Dignity repressed

O Terezin

Your famine

Your death

Disease and excrement

The torture

And the nakedness

Overcrowding

Screams and cries

Squeezed like cattle

Sent to die

‘Sie wurden in den Transport eingereicht…’

Began the note

To those whose plight

Would be a one-way

Train to Auswitz

 

O Terezin

You living Hell

Your Machiavellian posturing

The charade the lies

The twisting of the knife

To cover the Evil of your ways

 

BUT YET

You could not

Obliterate

The spirit of your captives

Who snubbed their noses

At your evil and depravity

And broke out into song and dance..

As their last chance at freedom

And of life ….

With poignant levity

The people made their puppet shows

Their vaudeville

Their operas

Their concerts and their pantomimes

While poets uttered rhymes …

Most touchingly the children drew

Their chilling record

Of your crimes

Their gifted plays

Their satire of your ways

 

And in the end 

The Final Solution

Had its own

 Finale

O Terezin 

             You could not win              

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