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Station Zed was the crematory. Our guide said that this was never a heavy-load murder station, but the bunker-like entrance to the actual ovens was as tough to see as I could imagine. Numbers are important, but even one person murdered in such a fashion is unthinkable to me. The statue is in the area, now attesting to the pain and suffering that accompanied this place and the others like it.
When I was teaching a Humanities course in my high school, I took my students on monthly field trips. One of them was to the Holocaust Museum in Skokie, Illinois, where we were fortunate enough in the 1990s to have a speaker, Elaine Welbel, who was a camp survivor. A lot of my thoughts were about hearing her accounts of 33 months in Auschwitz. Here is the poem I wrote about her and her success after our 1997 visit:
THE NAZI TRIED TO TAKE AWAY HER NAME
She existed thirty-three months in Auschwitz
With shaved head, empty stomach, emptier future,
And a number tattooed blue just below her left elbow:
The Nazi tried to take away her name,
Her life, her culture, her heritage.
Millions of souls, less lucky than she,
Lost their lives along with their names
In Auschwitz and Buchenwald and so many
Dozens of death camps across Europe.
The Nazi tried to take away their names,
Their lives, their cultures, their heritage.
Fifty years have now gone by; Auschwitz is a memorial
Rather than the death camp it was designed to be.
The Nazi took away his own name, becoming a faceless villain.
She meanwhile survived Auschwitz, emigrated to America,
Married, worked, raised her family, lived free.
This frosty morning she comes to teach our class of history,
Of the Nazi who tried to take away her name;
Of the Nazi who tried to take away the names of others.
She rises to speak; we listen as she is introduced.
Her voice quivers as she begins her tale of truth.
The nameless Nazi had tried to take away her name,
But he never realized she was stronger than he was.
I never caught her number; it might have had a four in it.
I did catch her name, and I will never ever forget it.
Her name is Elaine.
Heartfelt Thanks to Elaine Welbel 1997
We returned to the cruise ship after we left the camp. The ship offered a special Brat Fest up on the Lido deck, and after we stood in line and collected our sandwiches, we ordered some cold German beers. I thought about Sachsenhausen, and I thought about Elaine, who passed away a few years ago. And I drank to my friend, the wonderful woman I only met once, but who showed my students and me the power of a survivor. That night I wrote another poem, one that included the marching sound I had heard in my mind when we arrived at the camp. And I thought of how Elaine defeated the nameless Nazi.
She existed thirty-three months in Auschwitz
With shaved head, empty stomach, emptier future,
And a number tattooed blue just below her left elbow:
The Nazi tried to take away her name,
Her life, her culture, her heritage.
Millions of souls, less lucky than she,
Lost their lives along with their names
In Auschwitz and Buchenwald and so many
Dozens of death camps across Europe.
The Nazi tried to take away their names,
Their lives, their cultures, their heritage.
Fifty years have now gone by; Auschwitz is a memorial
Rather than the death camp it was designed to be.
The Nazi took away his own name, becoming a faceless villain.
She meanwhile survived Auschwitz, emigrated to America,
Married, worked, raised her family, lived free.
This frosty morning she comes to teach our class of history,
Of the Nazi who tried to take away her name;
Of the Nazi who tried to take away the names of others.
She rises to speak; we listen as she is introduced.
Her voice quivers as she begins her tale of truth.
The nameless Nazi had tried to take away her name,
But he never realized she was stronger than he was.
I never caught her number; it might have had a four in it.
I did catch her name, and I will never ever forget it.
Her name is Elaine.
Heartfelt Thanks to Elaine Welbel 1997
We returned to the cruise ship after we left the camp. The ship offered a special Brat Fest up on the Lido deck, and after we stood in line and collected our sandwiches, we ordered some cold German beers. I thought about Sachsenhausen, and I thought about Elaine, who passed away a few years ago. And I drank to my friend, the wonderful woman I only met once, but who showed my students and me the power of a survivor. That night I wrote another poem, one that included the marching sound I had heard in my mind when we arrived at the camp. And I thought of how Elaine defeated the nameless Nazi.
L’CHAIM
As we walk across the open yard on the way to Sachsenhausen,
The former concentration camp at Oranienburg, just twenty minutes
Outside Berlin, we find ourselves striding across loose black gravel;
Our 53 tourists sound much as if we are marching, newly assigned,
Laden with our two old suitcases filled with our meager belongings.
We hush our talk as well, turning our minds inward, as if toward
Survival.
We enter a stifling hot barracks, we see the triple bunks with slats,
We fan ourselves as we can from the heat of only twenty percent
Of the number of people who scraped out some life here, who slept here,
Until times got worse and the population trebled. The barracks smell like
Ashes, like a threat of stinking death that would hang over our every effort of
Survival.
Outside, a fresh wind whispers secrets into the trees; perhaps reporting
Offenses to the Kapos, perhaps forming lies to incriminate me; it would
Not be hard here to turn paranoid, to hide in fear from every direction,
To listen for sounds from Zed’s death rooms; to lose the strength of
Survival.
Today I think of my friend, the survivor who beat Auschwitz long ago,
The woman too tough for the nameless Nazi to be able to kill or to
Take away her name. Before I leave I place a stone on a monument, look
Heavenward and think of her, and tonight I will drink a toast to Elaine:
L’Chaim, Elaine, To Life, L’Chaim.
As we walk across the open yard on the way to Sachsenhausen,
The former concentration camp at Oranienburg, just twenty minutes
Outside Berlin, we find ourselves striding across loose black gravel;
Our 53 tourists sound much as if we are marching, newly assigned,
Laden with our two old suitcases filled with our meager belongings.
We hush our talk as well, turning our minds inward, as if toward
Survival.
We enter a stifling hot barracks, we see the triple bunks with slats,
We fan ourselves as we can from the heat of only twenty percent
Of the number of people who scraped out some life here, who slept here,
Until times got worse and the population trebled. The barracks smell like
Ashes, like a threat of stinking death that would hang over our every effort of
Survival.
Outside, a fresh wind whispers secrets into the trees; perhaps reporting
Offenses to the Kapos, perhaps forming lies to incriminate me; it would
Not be hard here to turn paranoid, to hide in fear from every direction,
To listen for sounds from Zed’s death rooms; to lose the strength of
Survival.
Today I think of my friend, the survivor who beat Auschwitz long ago,
The woman too tough for the nameless Nazi to be able to kill or to
Take away her name. Before I leave I place a stone on a monument, look
Heavenward and think of her, and tonight I will drink a toast to Elaine:
L’Chaim, Elaine, To Life, L’Chaim.
And so I finish my 200th post. The next post will be in Stockholm.
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