Poems About Theresienstadt

Theresienstadt Burial Scene Inspired by Drawing 15: Burial Scene (at Terezin 1941, aged 9) Karel Sattler, born 16/11/1932. Died in the camps Burial Scene I am Karel, aged 9 See! I have drawn a skull and crossbones This isn’t a pirate picture The bones are real Nothing here is pretend Where I live Coffins are common as doors No happy songs, Only the chants for the dead Fear, filth, grief Are my close companions It’s hard, being a child Where hunger gnaws you lean Theresienstadt Magdeburg Barracks Inspired by Drawing 25: Magdeburg Barracks (at Terezin 1941 aged 10) Eva Wollsteinerova, born 24/1/1931 Died in the Death Camps I am Eva aged 10 Please look at my drawing It’s all that’s left of me The rest went up in smoke My little life was lived In crowded barracks Afraid of guards, of sickness Afraid of my own shadow I didn’t play hangman’s noose Gibbets made my parents shake like leaves Arrests, locked doors and whispers The silence of ghosts Peek-a-boo! Here today, then gone! People vanished like scribbles Rubbed out from a dirty page Theresienstadt Village Fair Inspired by Drawing 26 Village Fair, (at Terezin,1941 aged 7) by Ruth Heinova, born 19/2/1934 Died in the death camps I’m Ruth, I’m seven years old This place is not where I live! My real home’s a pretty dream Some strokes of my pencil Will bring it alive for you The merry go round’s such fun My ears fill up with laughter, music, joy The rise and fall of hooves on painted horses If I close my eyes together and squeeze them tight I can taste the ice cream, sweet and white, from a stall If I close my eyes and wrap my arms around me Very tight, Terezin melts like a lump of dirty snow Whoosh! I’m up on a swing Almost touching the clouds Theresienstadt: The Land of Plenty Inspired by Drawing 33 The Land of Plenty (at Terezin,1941 aged 9) by Ilona Weissova, born 6/3/1932. Died in the death camps I am Ilona. I am 9 years old My neighbours harvest weeds and grass to boil It tastes like spinach. Mother says If horses eat it, I can eat it too Valie stole three potatoes, and was thrashed The SS guard gave orders: ‘Beat her to death, to teach the rest a lesson, ’ But Valie didn’t die. Now, she’s a hunchback Crippled and twisted. Did the food taste good? I am drawing The Land of Plenty, entrance fee one crown I am drawing myself on a bench, with a bird on a fork Mmmmmm…I can smell the roast-flesh in my nose There are bottles of rum and punch to keep the cold out And a hedgehog….every spine’s impaled with fruit! And look! Here comes a little child-angel Carrying a basket of hard boiled eggs! Theresienstadt: Prisoners leaving & arriving at Terezin Inspired by Drawing 42 Prisoners leaving & arriving at Terezin: by Dr. Karel Fleischmann, (Terezin, aged 45) died Auschwitz, October 1944 In my drawing, no one will recognise Leo Kraus, Hana Oplatkova, Samuel Weiner or Richard Busch In my drawing no one will identify Emil Huppert, Otto Schonfeld Bedrich Gutwillig or Jiri Bergmann Arrivals and departures from the transports Are faceless, bent, anonymous The arrivals lug some bedding on a cart All they could salvage, soaked by snow and ice Some memories, and rags and scraps of hope Those leaving bear a pack, Stamped with a nameless number, Carrying with them fleas, lice, typhus, dysentry Starvation, the death of self Tramping over the trampled ground Churned up by snow Go thousands of herded bodies Fodder for the oven’s endless hunger The Giant German Behemoth of Auschwitz