on 80 years

My mother was not yet ten
When she first heard the words “Never again”
She’d heard them then and since
Again and again

I went to Krakow to visit a friend
Saw the Katyn memorial to 22,000 murdered men
But chose not to visit Auschwitz
Where tourists go to see the truth
To see the place where a million  and more were slain
After being transported there by trucks in train
Through the gateway’s motto inscribed in iron
‘Work sets you free’, the godless claim

There was no exit, just one way in
With a serial number tattooed onto skin
And only death could offer release
From the agonies of slavery
Until the Soviet army arrived
And the ghastly horror was revealed

I watched the tour buses on their return
Along the road in afternoon sun
Gaunt faces of tourists
Stared at the cobbled streets
The coaches’ tyres rubbing out
The memory of exhausted shuffling feet

~

n.b. Eighty years, an imaginable lifetime, since the opening of the gates at Auschwitz to fresh air. Not so long ago. Not so long ago that anyone could forget, or deny the possibility of man’s inhumanity to man, woman and child. 

CLP 27/01/2025