Poetry commemorating the Holocaust

Never again!

Celine Leduc
January 27, 2005

Annie and Anita two best friends
Grew up together in Berlin.
Faithful to their religion and their love God.
No one knew who was Lutheran or Jewish.
They were blond haired blue eyed beauties.
Proud and loving German women.
Their generation reflected the openness of society.
Educated, lovers of music and dance.

As they grew their art complemented
One another a pianist/percussionist,
The other a modern dancer.
Their talent was applauded.
Germans loved them, for their talent
Their genius as they were the best
Germany had to offer.

They traveled around the world
Celebrating German dance and music
The special and honored place of woman in
German male oriented society.
All was fine, until….

1933 came, and all changed!
Germans became Aryans they were pure.
The National Socialist Party had won
An election, but were known as Nazis.

Under the pure Nazi!
One lost her rights to be a German
Her religion became a crime
She was a dirty Jew.
Even when she kept Kosher.
Accused of drinking the blood of gentile,
When her faith forbids the eating or drinking of blood.
The other soiled as she was a Jew lover.
Their love was unwelcome, forbidden and knew.
Soon they had to leave!

An underground network of women.
Made up of the unclean scoundrels.
Broke the German code of silence.
The impure allowed them to regain their nationality.
The underground provided them,
Fake name, passports, identity, traveling passes.
Purifying them by their name
Allowing them the flee to freedom.
In a world of fake identity
where German became Aryans.

You ask: “What’s in a name?”
Their blond hair and blue eyes
Was not reflected in their name.
And so their name changed
Reiner became .Reimer
And Erickson Brandt
Good German names reflecting the Aryans nightmare
Allowed them to dream of freedom
As they became card carrying fake slaves of the Nazis and Aryan

Nazis laws made their love illegal,
Their friendship lawless.
What you ask is in a name.
Life, love and freedom!

On a bright sunny day!
They set off on an a trip.
By car, by foot they reached
The border, between Germany and Holland.

It is between slavery and freedom.
The inseparable were separated.
One made it to safety
The other was killed by a lone border soldier.
Two became one.
The German soldier, screamed
A platoon doubled back.

Although she made it to safety.
She came back, to save her friend.
The soldier, mindlessly following orders demanded
What is your name?
Silence greeted him.
Not one word she said.
Not one scream from her lips.
Not one tear in her eyes.
As she held her childhood friend in her arms

Ten Nazi soldiers, ran when a gunshot called.
With all her might she fought.
They yelled traitor.
“Jude”, we know you are a Jew.
You betrayed the Reich.
You drink our blood, he yelled.
As her friend laid covered in blood
Because of a bullet in her back.
As the earth soaked up, swallowed
and drank the blood of the innocent..
Off to the Berlin you go.
Jewish murderer.

In Berlin, the hands that had clapped
Now her face they slapped.
Interrogated, punched, beaten.
Not one tear she shed.
Not one word she said.
Off to Auschwitz went.

A law, a man made law
A law of hatred separated
Two childhood friends.
Ended their life
Ended their freedom
Ended their earthly love.
Stripped them of their nationality.
Their identity but never of their dignity.
Two became one, in that horror.

She died at the border
She died in a camp, a gas chamber.
Clinging to her friend.
Her memory of better days.
On her way to the gas chamber
Her friend was there, showed her
Two flowers one white one red.

She stopped, bent and picked them up.
In her hands all that remained
Was a handful parched dried earth
Tainted by the blood of the innocent.
The lost of innocence
.