Poems About Theresienstadt Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Theresienstadt Burial Scene

Inspired by Drawing 15: Burial Scene (at Terezin 1941, aged 9) Karel Sattler, born 16/11/1932. Died in the camps

Burial Scene
I am Karel, aged 9
See! I have drawn a skull and crossbones

This isn’t a pirate picture
The bones are real
Nothing here is pretend

Where I live
Coffins are common as doors
No happy songs,
Only the chants for the dead

Fear, filth, grief
Are my close companions

It’s hard, being a child
Where hunger gnaws you lean


Theresienstadt Magdeburg Barracks

Inspired by Drawing 25: Magdeburg Barracks (at Terezin 1941 aged 10) Eva Wollsteinerova, born 24/1/1931 Died in the Death Camps

I am Eva aged 10
Please look at my drawing
It’s all that’s left of me
The rest went up in smoke

My little life was lived
In crowded barracks
Afraid of guards, of sickness
Afraid of my own shadow

I didn’t play hangman’s noose
Gibbets made my parents shake like leaves
Arrests, locked doors and whispers
The silence of ghosts
Peek-a-boo! Here today, then gone!

People vanished like scribbles
Rubbed out from a dirty page


Theresienstadt Village Fair

Inspired by Drawing 26 Village Fair, (at Terezin,1941 aged 7) by Ruth Heinova, born 19/2/1934 Died in the death camps

I’m Ruth, I’m seven years old
This place is not where I live!
My real home’s a pretty dream

Some strokes of my pencil
Will bring it alive for you

The merry go round’s such fun
My ears fill up with laughter, music, joy
The rise and fall of hooves on painted horses

If I close my eyes together and squeeze them tight
I can taste the ice cream, sweet and white, from a stall

If I close my eyes and wrap my arms around me
Very tight, Terezin melts like a lump of dirty snow

Whoosh! I’m up on a swing
Almost touching the clouds


Theresienstadt: The Land of Plenty

Inspired by Drawing 33 The Land of Plenty (at Terezin,1941 aged 9) by Ilona Weissova, born 6/3/1932. Died in the death camps

I am Ilona. I am 9 years old
My neighbours harvest weeds and grass to boil
It tastes like spinach. Mother says
If horses eat it, I can eat it too

Valie stole three potatoes, and was thrashed
The SS guard gave orders:
‘Beat her to death, to teach the rest a lesson, ’

But Valie didn’t die. Now, she’s a hunchback
Crippled and twisted. Did the food taste good?

I am drawing The Land of Plenty, entrance fee one crown
I am drawing myself on a bench, with a bird on a fork
Mmmmmm…I can smell the roast-flesh in my nose

There are bottles of rum and punch to keep the cold out
And a hedgehog….every spine’s impaled with fruit!

And look! Here comes a little child-angel
Carrying a basket of hard boiled eggs!


Theresienstadt: Prisoners leaving & arriving at Terezin

Inspired by Drawing 42 Prisoners leaving & arriving at Terezin: by Dr. Karel Fleischmann, (Terezin, aged 45) died Auschwitz, October 1944

In my drawing, no one will recognise
Leo Kraus, Hana Oplatkova,
Samuel Weiner or Richard Busch

In my drawing no one will identify
Emil Huppert, Otto Schonfeld
Bedrich Gutwillig or Jiri Bergmann

Arrivals and departures from the transports
Are faceless, bent, anonymous
The arrivals lug some bedding on a cart
All they could salvage, soaked by snow and ice
Some memories, and rags and scraps of hope

Those leaving bear a pack,
Stamped with a nameless number,
Carrying with them fleas, lice, typhus, dysentry
Starvation, the death of self

Tramping over the trampled ground
Churned up by snow
Go thousands of herded bodies
Fodder for the oven’s endless hunger
The Giant German Behemoth of Auschwitz