Anthem for the Holocaust
We never dreamt he really would gain power,
Especially after serving time in jail
But soon the little figure
Grew popular and bigger;
Elected as a god he couldn't fail.
The Crystal Night destruction was an omen;
A scene of sheer unleashed nocturnal spite,
So many Jews left battered,
So many windows shattered,
The streets aglow like seas of piercing light.
The leader's henchmen seemed immune to pleading,
No mercy heeded or a need for fuss,
Our synagogues fell flaming
While demagogues sat blaming
The problems of society on us.
Their whole regime was based on bloodline merit
Which placed the Master Race right at the top;
An epic undertaking
With bolts of thunder breaking,
A storm of cruelty nobody could stop.
Each foreign name and feature classed the masses,
A yellow star made my own people sheep,
With homosexuals fated
All lesser types were hated,
They shot dissenters knowing life was cheap.
We Jews soon had to loiter in a ghetto,
The loss of food and status tend to goad,
A slum day is a slow one
When you've become a no one
And bodies lie in gutters on the road.
Then by surprise to stations we were herded,
What unexpected chaos filled the lanes,
From dead Weimar to Warsaw
Those armoured thugs who foresaw
The future forced us onto waiting trains.
Packed close inside the blackness, I heard crying,
Some died but death is ordinary in
A box reserved for cattle,
I can't forget the rattle
And clanging on the railway tracks of sin.
At last the wheels ceased at some destination,
Doors opened, fresh air cooling my hot face,
In pastures rooted nowhere
I saw a signpost show where
A place called Auschwitz occupied a space.
Assurances made some feel rather hopeful,
'Much better than the ghetto anyway',
Their thoughts were never centred
On what fumed as they entered;
A smoking chimney just across the way.
I should have known the hosts would be unfriendly,
The camp was never built to please the guests,
Tattooed and checked and listed
We healthy few consisted
Of labourers; no more than useful pests.
The old and very young were led off swiftly,
While mothers screamed and children tried to clutch
Their hands, I stared and wondered,
One second and you're sundered
From parents and the only loving touch.
Through random violence, fear and naked roll-calls
In time I learned what Auschwitz was about;
From every new appearance
And every disappearance
Of every frail arrival I found out.
That citadel contained divided regions;
A section where the slaves like me would toil
And for the weak unable
To stand or work in Babel
A slaughterhouse to make the soul recoil.
If you ask me what's evil, I'll inform you
It's friends who think a shower is their prize
Until the guards drop pellets
And everyone can tell it's
The end as poison gas begins to rise.
A death machine designed to run like clockwork,
The first conveyor belt of genocide,
Apart from heated ovens
The devil's darkest covens
Are stinking pits for innocents who died.
Our prison even lured the men of science,
Wise doctors quite contented to attach
Electrodes to discarded
Shells labelled as 'retarded',
The study of a docile trusting batch.
The commandant could switch off in an instant,
A wife to love and family to rear,
We starved while he ate dinner,
He grew fat, we grew thinner,
At home he had a conscience that was clear.
The welcome troops who came to liberate us
Discovered huts where living corpses slept,
They'd witnessed bombs and madness
Yet here they gazed in sadness,
The day when even hardened soldiers wept.
So if a fool should say it didn't happen,
If any claim my testament's not true,
Absorb the facts and listen,
As sure as stars that glisten
The millions whisper still to me and you.
©
I really liked this poem as it was straight from the heart - I think if you read enough poetry like I do you tend to sense honesty when it's communicated. I also liked the positive ending too 
