On The Occasion Of A Visit To Auschwitz Poem by Martin Ward

I'm not sure what I expected
from a visit to Auschwitz.
It had been included on the itinerary
of a five day holiday to Poland.

The first sign that things would not be
quite as I expected was the lack of road signs:
the English driver knew where he was going,
but it shocked me when those notorious gates
came into view on what appeared to be
an industrial estate with nearby houses,
a supermarket and plentiful car and coach parking.

It was a warm, sunny day, with clear blue skies.
I had heard a story that birds keep away
from the concentration camp, as if to disapprove
of human inhumanity. But on this occasion,
a noisy throng of sparrows were busily building
their nests in the guttering of the old huts.

It started to hit home when a group of us
were herded into the last remaining crematoria,
where a guide explained the manufacture
and use of the empty gas tins on display.
The manufacturer of this gas kept in business
for many years, providing jobs for families.

A Pole proudly showed us where
the Camp Commandant had been hanged:
the gibbet preserved for all to see.
Nearby were those infamous gates,
above which exclaims the merits of work.

After a couple of hours of doing touristy things,
we moved to Belson - just a short distance away.
The sheer scale shocked me: stretching out
as far as I could see. Numerous wooden huts,
preserved and outlines of so many others.

A short distance from the coach park
is the main entrance to the concentration camp:
this would not have been the first glimpse
of Belson by others who had gone before,
as theirs was but a fleeting glimpse -
of a finger pointing pendulum: one way or another;
to work until they died or death within minutes.
Come and take a shower: blushing teenagers,
modestly hiding their genitals from general view.
No need to worry on that score: before long
they would be climbing one on top of another
to hopelessly reach the hole in the ceiling
from which some child of a mother
had emptied the contents of a gas cylinder.

Did anyone notice the stench of burning flesh
and the skyline on fire as they disembarked the train?

Back at the entrance gates, and further on,
beside that railway line cast in a furnace
burned more Vulcan than Hell;
tourists pose for pictures. More surreal
than any vision of the human imagination:
posing for photographs with smiling faces,
oblivious to what had gone before.

One trip to Auschwitz is enough.
The mountains of shoes, hair, false-teeth
and suitcases with labels betraying the place
of origin of the victim owner.
Jews, Gays, Gipsies, Poles, Freemasons:
I'm sure that a category can be found
for each one of us if so desired.

As the remnants of this Hades fades -
and time has no regard for our orisons,
we must dig deeper than the mea culpa
of these so called post-war years,
as the names and nations of infamy build,
still fanning the flames of Auschwitz.