Prayer Of A Prisoner In A Extermination Camp Poem by Gert Strydom

Maybe I will never see you, Jerusalem,
still I yearn to walk in your streets,
at times I have hope,
at other times my heart tightens,

when I see every face, hear every voice
of them that have got to die and I am forced
to strip my own people from all dignity
to help destroy them, to breath in their fear of death.

In how many extermination camps their are people like me,
who lead their own people to the valley of death,
who themselves yearn for their own certain destruction
have to undress corpses
trying to stay alive crying, vomiting,
are praying to You, are waiting day upon day for salvation?