Holocaust Poems
The Burning Of The Books
by Bertolt Brecht
When the Regime
commanded the unlawful books to be burned,
teams of dull oxen hauled huge cartloads to the bonfires.
Then a banished writer, one of the best,
scanning the list of excommunicated texts,
became enraged: he'd been excluded!
He rushed to his desk, full of contemptuous wrath,
to write fierce letters to the morons in power —
......
My Heart Was Wandering In The Sands
by Christopher John Brennan
MY heart was wandering in the sands,
a restless thing, a scorn apart;
Love set his fire in my hands,
I clasp’d the flame unto my heart.
Surely, I said, my heart shall turn
one fierce delight of pointed flame;
and in that holocaust shall burn
its old unrest and scorn and shame:
......
Tourists
by Yehuda Amichai
Visits of condolence is all we get from them.
They squat at the Holocaust Memorial,
They put on grave faces at the Wailing Wall
And they laugh behind heavy curtains
In their hotels.
They have their pictures taken
Together with our famous dead
At Rachel's Tomb and Herzl's Tomb
And on Ammunition Hill.
They weep over our sweet boys
......
First They Came For The Jews
by Martin Niemöller
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
......
Holocaust
by Barbara Sonek
We played, we laughed
we were loved.
We were ripped from the arms of our
parents and thrown into the fire.
We were nothing more than children.
We had a future. We were going to be lawyers, rabbis, wives, teachers, mothers. We had dreams, then we had no hope. We were taken away in the dead of night like cattle in cars, no air to breathe smothering, crying, starving, dying. Separated from the world to be no more. From the ashes, hear our plea. This atrocity to mankind can not happen again. Remember us, for we were the children whose dreams and lives were stolen away.
Survivors
by Michael R. Burch
These are poems about the victims and survivors of great disasters and tragedies: the Holocaust, the Palestinian Nakba, the Trail of Tears, 9-11 ...
Survivors
by Michael R. Burch
(for the victims and survivors of 9/11 and their families)
In truth, we do not feel the horror
of the survivors,
......
"Auschwitz Rose" and other Holocaust Poems
by Michael R. Burch
These are Holocaust poems and translations by Michael R. Burch.
Epitaph for a Child of the Holocaust
by Michael R. Burch
I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.
......
Holocaust Poetry
by Michael R. Burch
These are Holocaust poems and translations by Michael R. Burch.
Something
for the children of the Holocaust and the Nakba
Something inescapable is lost—
lost like a pale vapor curling up into shafts of moonlight,
vanishing in a gust of wind toward an expanse of stars
immeasurable and void.
......
If this is a man
by Josh Lyndon
A man who commited no crime,
Yet forced to do the hardest time.
They shaved his head,
Gave him straw for a bed.
There was something special they knew,
But he was a convicted jew.
The nazi's seeked to destroy,
Primo Levi the geniouse boy.
Sent to work in the cold all day.
Not a bad word would he say.
......
A Recantation
by Rudyard Kipling
1917
What boots it on the Gods to call?
Since, answered or unheard,
We perish with the Gods and all
Things made--except the Word.
Ere certain Fate had touched a heart
By fifty years made cold,
I judged thee, Lyde, and thy art
O'erblown and over-bold.
......
