Dumbbell69
New Member
Can anyone please explain?
What does the sixth stanza means?
=============================================
If the concentration camps had been liberated in 1943 or 1944
I could have done my family tree
by numbers.
Now only one such branch, Auschwitz-Birkenau 64189,
(my great aunt Erna)
still quietly smokes off the stench of a cracking brand
against unwilling skin.
My uncle Henryk is the child
who neighbours promised to protect,
Then they threw him onto the street and
denounced him well at the age of ten
before they kicked him.
And I am told that my grandmother knew
in a dream from her hiding place
that he was made to bleed to death slowly
on the street.
My grandmother Henya finds her grave
softer now on the branch that is my middle name.
And same too for
my great grandmother Ruth
about whom I can know almost nothing.
My father Roman (Raymond now),
a small child then,
receives compensation cheques from the German government
for his troubles.
In spite of his fear, he has grafted
we three children to absent bark.
In spite of the flames licking at his every moment
and tearing into his offspring
with unquenchable tongues,
transferring the genetically coded warning
that who I am
must never be decided upon
by uninvited courts
Warning
That who I am
must never be selected (that word)
not for one split second,
not ever,
not on my life
That if ever I am only a Jew to a Nazi
only a woman to a man
only a soldier to an army
only an obstacle to a bullet
If ever I am only
a number or a name
Then surely
I am
on fire
again.
What does the sixth stanza means?
=============================================
If the concentration camps had been liberated in 1943 or 1944
I could have done my family tree
by numbers.
Now only one such branch, Auschwitz-Birkenau 64189,
(my great aunt Erna)
still quietly smokes off the stench of a cracking brand
against unwilling skin.
My uncle Henryk is the child
who neighbours promised to protect,
Then they threw him onto the street and
denounced him well at the age of ten
before they kicked him.
And I am told that my grandmother knew
in a dream from her hiding place
that he was made to bleed to death slowly
on the street.
My grandmother Henya finds her grave
softer now on the branch that is my middle name.
And same too for
my great grandmother Ruth
about whom I can know almost nothing.
My father Roman (Raymond now),
a small child then,
receives compensation cheques from the German government
for his troubles.
In spite of his fear, he has grafted
we three children to absent bark.
In spite of the flames licking at his every moment
and tearing into his offspring
with unquenchable tongues,
transferring the genetically coded warning
that who I am
must never be decided upon
by uninvited courts
Warning
That who I am
must never be selected (that word)
not for one split second,
not ever,
not on my life
That if ever I am only a Jew to a Nazi
only a woman to a man
only a soldier to an army
only an obstacle to a bullet
If ever I am only
a number or a name
Then surely
I am
on fire
again.
