AUSCHWITZ AND THE LIBERATION OF BIRKENAU

LIBERATION

This past week has marked the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz- Birkenau in 1945, by the Red Army.
A political gathering met in Jerusalem to commemorate this day and The Holocaust.


In the gray columns of weary women
Going each day to work
Barefoot half naked, hungry, cold
Wretched shadows dragging each foot.

Not all of them will return to camp
Many will remain on the road
Their corpses will be pulled back into the rows
They are all needed for the roll call.

Corpses from the fields, corpses from near blocks
Are thrown together on the piles
Today’s half dead - will burn tomorrow
The same fate is awaiting us all.

Only a dark smoke will burst to the skies
And the wind will whistle victoriously
Spreading the stench of burnt bodies
In glory or in defeat?

The marching columns of weary women
Young and old - mature and children
To last at least another day
Freedom must be not far away.

Monika
Birkenau, 1943

Translated from the Polish by June Friedman