Auschwitz

Tribute

Tell me, are you grateful…

For a bar of soap?

For shoes and socks?

For a bowl of soup?

For a toothbrush?

For your children?

For your parents?

For shelter from the rain?

For a mattress?

For a pillow?

For choices?

For worship?

For certainty?

For a toilet?

For medicine?

For honorable work?

For kindness?

For friendship?

For clothing?

For fresh air?

For rest?

For humanity?

For courage?

For a furnace?

For a fireplace?

For a shower?

For a towel?

For respect?

For truth?

For faith?

For questions?

For grass?

For gravel?

For privacy?

For a glass of water?

For sunshine?

For comfort?

For seats on trains?

For history?

For a voice?

Yes, I am grateful

Will you remember…

The buildings?

The walkways?

The silence?

The numbers?

The reasons?

The families?

The lonely?

The fighters?

The broken?

The acts of kindness?

The acts of hatred?

The small, closed spaces?

The small, closed faces?

The eyes of the others who looked at you briefly, accidentally, because of shame, of disbelief, of unanswerable questions?

The eyes of the others who couldn’t look at you because of shame, of disbelief, of unanswerable questions?

Your own eyes on the ground, on the sky, on the stuff of horror?

Your feet on the gravel and the grass they didn’t have?

Your coat against the chill, your mild thirst, the growling in your stomach since you haven’t eaten since breakfast?

The gallows, the wall, the posts?

The ovens?

The vastness and the small details?

The toothbrushes, the eyeglasses, the pots and pans?

The suitcases with names…and birthplaces…and ages- whole lives written on the outside, full of hope?

The sign- Arbeit Macht Frei-

The lies?

The hair?

The shoes?

The empty cannisters?

The neat, white house?

The cold, brick barracks?

The chimneys?

The rows and rows and rows of buildings?

The children?

The resistance?

The lack of resistance?

The words in all languages? Finding your own, so you could understand what was written for the others?

The boxcar?

The barbed wire?

The trees?

The railroad tracks?

The gates?

The statues?

The silence?

The attempts to deny, to destroy, to say it never existed?

The cowardice?

The blue and white flags draping the descendents, colorful and stunning in their reverence and their defiance?

The prayer shawls?

The distance traveled to come to this place- to die and to remember?

The music, sung in young, strong voices?

The large circle, the prayers, the voices calling out across the miles and the years?

The tears and the lack of them?

The ashes?

The elegant young woman- your guide- so eloquent and true in her language and facts - their story- told with a tenderness that showed the opposite of that evil...honor, respect, remembrance? A soft breaking of the voice, ever so slightly, standing away, ever so slightly…with a gentle understanding that this is your first time to witness and that you don’t know how to do it. Space and time to think, but not too much or else you might be the one laying on the ground, sobbing, unable to get up, instead of simply looking like all the others…haunted, changed, feet shuffling onward on the tidy gravel pathways and the bright green grass?

The look of her elegant body after the tour- you happen to see her but she doesn’t see you- walking away with her husband…still elegant but something gone out of her demeanor, spent…still tall, but now more empty? Important, sacred work done well.  Love and respect shown to those who desperately needed it so long ago.

She thanked you for listening to her.

She thanked you for listening to her.

Yes, I will remember

Will you tell the others?

Yes, I will tell them

Are you changed?

Yes, I am changed

Auschwitz- October 14, 2012