Lying at the Gate (Auschwitz)

An oldie, reworked.


“Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate.”
Dante Alighieri

I stand at the gate in front of Auschwitz.

My knees begin to wobble. Then they begin to buckle.

Soon, I have no legs to stand on and I am sitting on them.

I go to raise my fist, but my muscles are too weak to lift my arm.

I try to look up, but I am blinded by blackness.

I want to speak, but I have lost my voice.

Finally, my body collapses,

Like a bag of bones.

Two Polish people come to my rescue.

They carry me off in a stretcher. “Too much heat!” they say in Polish.

As they are carrying me off, a voice in my fevered brain spoke:

‘Wir haben überlebt.

Wir haben alles verloren,

Aber überlebt.

Ausgerechnet wir.’

(‘We survived.

We lost everything,

But we survived.

We, of all people.’)

 

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ionicus

Very poignant, Glenn.
The memories of those harrowing events can have traumatic effects.

mikeverdi

Indeed, I agree with luigi. I feel privileged to never have suffered a war, yet they flourish all around us. Your work reminds us of the horror of one.
Mike

“We survived. We lost everything, But we survived. We, of all people” in German would be:

“Wir haben überlebt.
Wir haben alles verloren,
Aber überlebt.
Ausgerechnet wir.”

I don’t understand what you wrote.