This is Buchenwald

                                                      This is Buchenwald

                                                 A poem of the Holocaust

You awake. All is quiet. Then enters the chaos in its daily regularity

“Achtung!” comes the cry. You all fall into your places

The weak are held up secretly by kind souls. No one dares to collapse

“Laufen!” The run begins; en route to the stone quarry

Some of your brethren fall down beside you. They must be left

You turn your face away from their desperate pleas

This is Buchenwald.

They watch you with narrowed eyes, every step carefully reviewed

You do not have the strength to lift the stones, and your arms tremble from the weight

The boulder betrays you and slips, coming crashing down and shattering the silence

It falls upon the feet of those who are working near you, halting the tidy line of production

The overseers are upon you in an instant, like hawks bearing down on their prey

You try to fall upon your knees, to beg and scrape and grovel at their feet for a sliver of mercy

This is Buchenwald

A moment of silence before the lips part to reveal your fate

“The forest.”

You are numb as they haul you off, unable to comprehend

Even as your arms are strung up behind your back to the tree branch you remain silent

Minutes later, the fire begins to burn through your muscles and a scream rips from your throat

The sound lingers for a moment. Suddenly you hear cries that mirror your own

They are all around you. You had not noticed their presence before.

The young and the old. The healthy and the sick

The Nazis gather around the bases of the trees, laughing rowdily

“Sing Jews, sing!” they cry

This is Buchenwald

                                    *********************

In April, a young American soldier happens upon the forest, his face stricken with horror

He opens his mouth to ask aloud the question that pulses in his mind:

What is this place?

But there is no need, the answer is already there

This is Buchenwald.

A/N: Hi there guys! If you know me, you know that I don't write poetry very often. On the slim chance that I do, however, it's always about something very emotionally important to me. The Holocaust is one of those things. For those of you who don't know, Buchenwald was Germany's largest concentration camp. This is a short description of how its inmates were treated, written by myself for a school project:

"Buchenwald inmates were treated horribly. Many S.S. officers would walk alongside prisoners with vicious dogs that were trained to bite their victims at the wrist, neck, and legs. If the guard said “Jew” the dog would bite its victim until told to release. That command was seldom given. Prisoners were also forced to sing after role call. If they did not, they were beaten or shot by the S.S. Inmates were also given very little food, as expected. A small piece of bread with a little bit of butter or jam was eaten in the morning, with no food given until dinner."

The punishment that is given in this poem is the bleakest of all. Buchenwald was surrounded by a large, thick forest. This forest was used for two things: public hangings and singing. The latter might seem rather strange, so allow me to explain. The Singing Forest, as it was famously known, was a place of punishment. Prisoners were taken here for wrong doings, or simply because of the enjoyment of the S.S. They would be tied to one of the enormous trees by a rope with their arms behind their back. This would go on for hours, or sometimes days. When they were finally released from this position (that is, if they were not already dead or killed afterward) their shoulder blades would be dislocated, rendering them unable to work. They were useless. It was for this reason that they were often shot after the punishment was over.

I hope that you gained a better sense of the Holocaust through this poem. Remember that genocide still takes place today, right under our noses. Countries will deny it, saying that it is nothing more than civil war. They are lying. Stand up for the people that are unable to do so for themselves. Remember Buchenwald and all of the other camps that the Nazis created.

And above all, remember all of those who died as nothing but a number.