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Auschwitz Rose and Other Holocaust Poems by Michael R. Burch

Michael R. Burch is an American poet, essayist, editor and publisher of Holocaust poetry. The painting below is by Mary Rae. Burch describes the painting's genesis as follows: "The Rose came to me in a vision, and Mary Rae helped bring her to life. In my vision the Rose floated in the air, suspended before the dismal gray Auschwitz death camp. Thornless, she symbolizes women and children who are defenseless, unless we choose to protect them. 



Auschwitz Rose

There is a Rose at Auschwitz, in the briar,
a rose like Sharon's, lovely as her name.
The world forgot her, and is not the same.
I love her and would not forget desire,
but keep her memory exalted flame
to justify the thistles and the nettles.

On Auschwitz now the reddening sunset settles;
they sleep alike—diminutive and tall,
the innocent, the "surgeons."
                                                     Sleeping, all.
Red oxides of her blood, bright crimson petals,
if accidents of coloration, gall
my heart no less.
                               Amid thick weeds and muck
there lies a rose man's crackling lightning struck;
the only Rose I ever longed to pluck.
Soon I'll bed there and bid the world "Good Luck."

Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea



Cleansings

Walk here among the walking scepters. Learn
inhuman patience. Flesh can only cleave
to bone this tightly if their hearts believe
that God is good, and never mind the Urn.

A lentil and a bean might plump their skin
with mothers’ bounteous, soft-dimpled fat
(and call it “health”), might quickly build again
the muscles of dead menfolk. Dream, like that,

and call it courage. Cry, and be deceived,
and so endure.  Or burn, made wholly pure.
One’s prayer is answered,
                                               “god” thus unbelieved.

No holy pyre this—death’s hissing chamber.
Two thousand years ago—a starlit manger,
weird Herod’s cries for vengeance on the meek,
the children slaughtered. Fear, when angels speak,

the prophesies of man.
                                          Do what you "can,"
not what you must, or should.
                                                       They call you “good,”

dead eyes devoid of tears; how shall they speak
except in blankness? Fear, then, how they weep.
Escape the gentle clutching stickfolk. Creep
away in shame to retch and flush away

your vomit from their ashes. Learn to pray.

Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea



Pfennig Postcard, Wrong Address

We saw their pictures:
tortured out of our imaginations
like golems.

We could not believe
in their frail extremities
or their gaunt faces,

pallid as our disbelief.
They are not
with us now . . .

We have:
huddled them
into the backroomsofconscience,

consigned them
to the ovensofsilence,

buried them in the mass graves
of circumstancesbeyondourcontrol.

We have
so little left
of them

now
to remind us ...

Originally published in Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust



Departure Platform, Treblinka

There is nothing so terrible
as your “smile” of departure,
as your downturned eyes,
as your upturned frown,
as your hair so unremarkably brown
in which I drown.

Nothing so terrible
as these tears upon your quiescent cheeks
(O!, their intense glistening!).

Nor any sounds so wrenching
as the pistons’ hissings,
as the brakes’ maniacal screechings.

Nothing in all the universe so pallid as the eyes
of the “conductors” ...
so alien, beyond all beseeching.

If only I could foresee your return
negating the prophecies of the bituminous engines,
if only I could imagine
something as lovely as the vision
of your retracted hand
not vanishing forever . . .



Survivors

In truth, we do not feel the horror
of the survivors,
but what passes for horror:

a shiver of “empathy.”

We too are “survivors,”
if to survive is to snap back
from the sight of death

like a turtle retracting its neck.



After the Holocaust

–for all those who confronted evil with love, honor and courage

Poetry
can never be
wholly ironic again,
nor anything
but something
we sing . . .

(lacking
the conviction to say
that a great, desecrating
evil
does not exist in the hearts of men)

. . . of a love everlasting.



What was the genesis of the Holocaust? The Holocaust became possible when Nazi Germany denied Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, communists, homosexuals and other human beings the protection of fair laws and fair courts. All too often the victims were completely innocent women and children, even babies. If German courts had upheld the rights of these disenfranchised people, obviously the Holocaust could never have taken place. So the solution is simple (which is not the same thing as "easy"): the world needs to require every nation to establish equal rights, fair laws and fair courts for all human beings, without exception.

The exceptions invariably lead to terrible misery, suffering and premature deaths. White settlers once stripped Native Americans of their human rights and dignity, and soon innocent women and children were walking the Trail of Tears. White slaveowners stripped black slaves of their human rights and dignity, and not only did blacks suffer abomination upon abomination, but it took a terrible Civil War followed by another hundred years of Jim Crow laws and public lynchings, before the United States finally began to embrace its avowed creed of all men (including of course all women) being created equal. Very similar things happened to Australian aborigines and South African blacks, among others.

These problems never correct themselves; they are only corrected when nations finally abandon racism (I call it the "chosen few sin-drome") and establish equal rights, fair laws and fair courts for everyone. Unfortunately, this is a lesson the nation of Israel needs to learn, and take to heart, because the racist laws and courts of Israel have lead to escalating violence on both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. A Palestinian baby should not—must not—be born with inferior rights to a Jewish baby. When black babies were born with inferior rights to white babies in the United States, the country was ripped apart, as multitudes of white Americans of good conscience could not bear to see the misery and suffering of so many black Americans. Today there are legions of Jewish humanitarian organizations and multitudes of Jews who feel the same way about the Palestinians. The existence of so many Jewish humanitarian organizations devoted to equal rights for Palestinians is proof positive that a terrible problem exists. Why are Jews, Americans and Internationals using their bodies as human shields, to protect Palestinian women, children and farmers, in Gaza and the West Bank? The proof is in the pudding, as the saying goes. If the children of one race need human shields to protect them from the adults of another race, and those adults are wearing military uniforms and police uniforms, then something is clearly wrong. Things only improved in the United States when employees of the government stopped persecuting minorities and started protecting them.

It's time for all Jews of good conscience, all Americans of good conscience, and all the people of the world to confront the simple facts: racism, unjust laws and unjust courts will always lead to horrendous violence. Since 1776 human beings have been rightly unwilling to be stripped of their self-evident rights and human dignity. I am an editor and publisher of Holocaust poetry, not an anti-Semite. I simply believe in protecting all women and children, not harming any of them. I have studied History, and listened to the Witnesses, and they both tell me that every human being must be protected by fair laws and fair courts. Israel is no exception to the rule, because exceptions to the rule will invariably lead to the suffering and deaths of innocents on both sides. — Mike Burch



Epitaph for a Child of the Holocaust

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.



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