Pinkas Memorial

We enter their final sanctuary We pass into stark rooms where every wall Is etched with names, their dates of birth and death, The latter closely packed in time As they in cattle trucks on their final journey As close together as those graves In the Jewish cemetery. Surnames and initials wrought in blood The dates in black to mourn their deaths Which brought their memories To this final place of rest. So many names, so many families, Recalled from that extinction Envisaged bythe "last solution". Beyond the walls gaunt statues Three children crouched in terror, Skeletal forms that twist with hunger, Recall my impotence and anger. Dear people, my brothers and my sisters Cattle-trucked to the Auschwitz abattoir. I see them waver there in regimented lines Between faint hope and deep despair. A moment seduced by the conscript orchestra. And those about to die recall The mocking irony of "Arbeit macht frei". No, no, what makes us free is true respect For our neighbour's faith, his colour and his race. To offer sanctuary to those displaced by war or famine, That's what makes us free and truly human.