22.6.08

War Wounds: Auschwitz

We file in, one by one by one
"An exhibition of unprecedented inhumanity."
The tattooed prisoner numbers
The Watchtowers
The mountains of hair
Myriads of bloody spectacles and broken dolls
Amid a thousand gasps.
The barbed wire
The roses that hang and wilt
The grey and red-bricked halls of ghosts
As the sombre rain falls.
The haunting lanterns creating sinister spotlights
Pictures and photos make it even more vivid
The stony paths A palimpsest of all that was.
Fallen, beaten, punctured people
Like litter, discarded like pebbles.
The bunk beds
Standing cells
The scratches.

The shower heads
That never worked.
And nor did that gas taps.

"He who forgets history is destined to live through it again."