The Görings Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Albert Göring, Hermann’s younger brother
Helped Jews and Czechs escape the Holocaust
His forebears numbered Counts and social thinkers
His godfather, a Jew, supplied his home
Two castles towering in baronial splendor

A film maker, he starred in war’s real movie
Hated the Nazis, their brutality
When Jewesses were forced to scrub the streets
This dapper-suited man knelt down to join them
Shaming the SS guard to let them go

Hermann, the elder, spread race-hate through Europe
Like rancid butter, bully-boy of bigotry

Albert, squirreled bank accounts abroad
Funding escape routes for outlawed resistors
Gas-oven fodder and the walking dead
He used the family stationary, signed Göring
To snatch Jews where he could from execution
Saved only by the scent-track of his brother
The family name, whose syllables spelt terror

Fall of the House of Göring, by War’s End
Both brothers faced the trials of Nuremberg
Hermann swallowed cyanide, dodged the gallows

Albert, released to lingering poverty
The flip side of the coin died unemployable
Cursed by the name, its notoriety