Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-S69279 / CC-BY-SA 3.0
Chasm
by S. J. Litherland
1940 / 1945
O children who did not sit in the shelter in your siren suit,
a suit of elf green and smell the damp safety of concrete,
the paraffin stove etching fine patterns on the ceiling,
the war’s constant accompaniment the drone of planes,
you are not asleep, the children are not asleep, the night
has forgotten to end, the trauma not yet visible, the sight
of flames, the firelight on our faces, half the sky scarlet,
O children who did not sit in the shelter in your siren suit,
with a gas mask around your neck, or taken outside,
and lifted onto my father’s shoulder for the better view and
instructed never to forget where Coventry had been.
O children who were not sent to Wales or the Lake District
after Auschwitz, this is not your birthday to celebrate,
the Red Army on January 27, 1945, liberating the death camp,
the children who had no mothers and fathers, the mothers
and fathers with no children, trains were laden with stateless
transported kinder to the countryside, they tell us
about the Lakes outside their windows, listen to their awe,
they each had a room, and in the room was a chest of drawers
or a wardrobe. They had learned that heaven is furnished.
O children who were not abandoned in Auschwitz and sent
to Wales or the Lake District, instruct the world not to forget.
kinder: Yiddish for children
