Brutes In Brown Shirts....Recalled By My Oma Poem by John Tansey

Nazi Germany
The Recall of a Story by my Oma

“It was in 1930’s Germany.
During the early years of “Hitler’s rise:
Brutes in brown shirts,
The night of the long knives”.

“Throughout history,
This was the most brutal of man’s cruelties”,

She said.
Speaking more to herself than me;

For, I could not have been, but more than seven,
sitting there, in a chair, at her kitchen table.
Yet, I absorbed so repletely,
All the blood, pulsing, from within this story.

My Oma continued sadly,
but with vivid memory…

“They rustled up all the men
in the early morning dampness.
Some wearing pants, others without”.

“And they lined them up with a perfection
that only Germans could do...”

“Barking orders,
They were looking for someone,
or something,
Just whom or what, I do not remember.”

“All the men complied, for one!
A lone wolf among a flock of sheep;
I mean that the rest were no less men because of it! ”

“This proud, stalwart stance of a man,
pulled out of the line,
strutted, defiantly, in a prance
and swaggered, right, out of sight, out of town…

And was never seen again! ”

We fell silent…