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| Pinchas teaching us his story, so we learn first hand at Plashov. |
First, a poem, written by a past MRH participant which I hope to incorporate and use in the Evening of Education and Inspiration, as it is a fantastic look into the thought process that went into building these camps as well as someone trying to grasp this, after visiting.
Majdanek
by Elizabeth Spalding
What did the people of Lublin think as they saw
the road being built to Majdanek?
The barracks go up
The watchtowers rise
The barbed wire fence with a sign bearing death’s head declare, “Achtung!”
If not residents of Lublin,
then who won the contract on
The rubber seals for the gas chambers
The bricks for the crematoria
and the coke that fired them?
Who delivered seven thousand hundred kilograms of Zyclon B?
What did they think as three hundred thousand people, dazed,
disembarked from cattle cars and marched through their town
Clinging to a single suitcase of all their workdly possessions
And the delusion of resettlement
that made the inevitable bearable?
Did music blaring from two loudspeakers really mask the sound of
Twelve solid hours of machine gun fire it took
To kill eighteen thousand in a single day?
Who served the executioners their meals
When they took their breaks in town?
What did they think was burning in Majdanek
As two hundred thirty-five thousand corpses went up in smoke?
And the the camp was liberated
What math did they use to calculate
How many square acres thirteen hundred cubic meters
of compost rich in ash and bone could fertilize?
How fifteen hundred living inmates could wear
Eight hundred thousand pairs of shoes?
I wandered through those shoes.
They filled three prison barracks at Majdanek.
Floor to ceiling, rows on rows.
I could not comprehend this crime.
The numbers were too huge.
But when I saw a pair of red high-heeled sandals
Still bright among the piles of rotting shoes
I stopped.
What kind of woman would wear
High-heeled sandals to a death camp?
I realized: my mother.
And then I understood and wept.
Posted with permission of the author
Also, feel free to visit the following links, and share them with your friends and family to put a stop to hatred and anti-Semitism, and to stand up.
"Teen gets probation for painting anti-Semitic graffiti on synagogues, Holocaust memorial" as told by the Calgary Herald.
"Top Nazi Rudolf Hess exhumed from 'pilgrimage' grave" as told by the BBC.
"Debate: Anti-Semitism remains a problem on Canadian campuses" as told by the National Post.
"German Concentration Camp Criticized for Charging Entrance Fee" as told by Spiegel Online.
"Holocaust Survivor forms bonds with Indian residential school survivors" as told by APTN National News.
"Poland asks Jews for forgiveness on 70th anniversary of Yedvabne massacre" as told by Haaretz.com.
