Auschwitz Poem by Colin Ian Jeffery

Auschwitz
(Nazi death camp)

In Poland, during Second World War,160 miles
south-west of Warsaw, the Nazis built their most notorious
death camp. At one time over ten thousand entered the gas
chambers daily. Not less than three million died there.
Above the main gates ‘Arbeit macht frel' (works makes you
free) . Cruel Nazi joke. Only death made them free.

Chimneys billowing white smoke
Ovens fired and ready
Waiting for train arriving
Cattle wagons packed with Jews.

Orchestra of prisoners
Weep playing Mozart
Performing Nazi scheme
Calming people in the trucks.

Guards with barking snapping dogs
Herd people from the wagons
Shouting for them to hurry
Moving towards the camp.

SS officers wait
With doctors in white coats
Ready to select and divide
Choosing who lives and who dies.

Fit and strong, mostly men live
Worked until they drop
Then sent to gas chambers
Bodies loaded into ovens.

Sick, weak, elderly and children
Sent directly to the showers
Told to strip and be deloused and bathed
Not knowing its the killing place.

Some women try hiding children
Under clothes hanging on pegs
But prisoners ‘Kommando‘
Search clothing supervised by SS.



Standing naked and embarrassed
Shower doors are closed
Gas hisses through ceiling vent
Panicking they scream in terror.

Choking gas overcomes
They fight desperate for air
Building human pyramid
Almost reaching to the ceiling.

Death takes ten minutes
Doors are opened
Bodies removed by ‘Kommando'
Gold teeth, and rings removed.

Bodies are carried into lifts
Fed into ovens
Chimney smoke turning black
Ashes emptied into pits.

Kommando work quickly
With another train coming
Cattle wagons packed with Jews
Ready for selection who lives or dies.