Threshing

a POV war piece

Yet another shipment rolls now to a stop, billowing exhaust from transport slatted sides,

      More this time from Kazmierz, the fourth such today;

             God. This batch is hardly even worth sorting, scarce a useful one in the bunch.

                       Much kinder I suppose to put them into the basement line, I think.

 

But there is a job to do here. Duty calls.

    ‘Come, follow me, step now, over here, hold your head high, we are good people-

          Your journey has been long, you must be tired, we will let you rest.

               Of course you'll be all right, just going to give you a hot shower.

Remember where your belongings are, you’ll need to collect them,

         You'll see your sister once you've been cleaned, and dressed anew’

 

Today has been endless, my back and mind strained, from the non-stop deliveries

       It seems the airflow worked, and just as well, for this lot of strained eyes

              How could they let themselves get to this state in those ghettos?

                  Hardly better than animals, so many useless; what good is their existence?

 

Blue and gray verticals adorn walking skeletons, and the faces blend.

           Newly hairless ragged skulls topping weak frames and hollow eyes;

                And damn it! I missed that one, over there, what a pitiful creature, really

                      Those fences work so my bolt does not have to now, I am glad. I will send a kapok  later to retrieve the refuse, as we finish today's work.

          Separating the wheat from the chaff, testing the thresher.

                       Just separating the wheat from the chaff. That’s all this is.

 

As the day drags on, my breath rises cold against cindery heat

            I cannot help but think of myself, my call to the patriotic fray

                     A country and landscape away from my wife and children,

                                thrown into this tenebrous chamber.

 

My commandant shouts ‘Come on, you b******s, it’s only a shower,

         There’s nothing to be afraid of’, to which the tired horde aquiesced

              as I forced the steel door against them. I never look them in the eye, you know.

                     It would be bad luck.

 

I catch a glimpse of a female subject, with tear-stained cheeks,

       sallow neck and a beak for a nose, I wondered why there was a terror-stricken glance

                I break my rule, and look, really look, upwards-seeing, knowing.

                        Did she not realize the rumours she heard were true?

 

Twenty minutes we will set the clocks, the canister men are doing their work;

          the lot shall definitely be breathless by then, standing frozen in place

                 bloody statues, like cordwood replicas of human form

                     Then the sommerkommando take over, clearing the chamber while the evidence dwindles in sooty ash.

 

I think of my little girl back home; I get to see her next month, golden curls

      and a laugh that can light up the darkness in this world

              my wife, never asking what it is I do all day. For what could I say?

                      There is a problem, and this, the solution.

  In farming, you cull the useless from the herd, so the rest may live, stronger.

 

I cannot call this role glamorous, but I will take my daughter on my knee

    and tell her fairy tales about the wicked witches with sunken eyes and crooked noses,

         that were stealing food from the mouths of good children like her

               until we trapped the witch, and all her sisters and brothers, inside the house of brick-

 

The one that the wolf could huff and puff but not blow down,

      and we burned them in that oven, because fairy tales are not really for children after all.

           Not that we fair woodsmen liked it one bit, but we had to keep her and her children free, for there is never enough for all.

 

Just like threshing wheat to separate the chaff, or culling the herd.

          I will leave out the part about the wheat having voices that cry in the night.

               Ashes, tomorrow, buried underneath the murky ponds.

                        A fuhrer's vison, one step closer to completion. The thresher, it seems, is ready.

Author's Note

March 13, 1943- the new ventilation system is tested at Auschwitz. The truth is always more complex than we can imagine. 2000 were transported from Warsaw that day, 1492 were selected for testing. Don't assume it could not happen again, folks, somewhere else.

I ma honored to have worked with the talented, young new writer Atticus Black on this chilling and heartrending piece. If you stumble on this, please send reviews his way as well.

Reviews

[Ed Hart]

I like it that you hold back nothing from the explorations of your heart and mind. It's easy enough to pull back the layers of the light and airy, the loving, even the cautionary; but to delve into the darkness, and make it come alive, as you often do, requires a heady-duty soul. These places you visit, where the larger community continuously falls asleep, need the exposure of your brave and beacon illumination. We are fortunate to have you in our midst.

[Through the Gateway]

An exceptionally dark and sinister POV piece. The whole piece gave me goosebumps and shivers. The complete apathy toward the lives of other human beings, the absolute disgust and the existence of another, comes through too well and we are put into the boots of those who are truly evil.

Very well written.

[BjH]

for a subject with so much literature and film surrounding it, i still can't help but feel it's such a hard one to tackle. i take on the modern wars from first hand knowledge and there are many atrocities there too but i don't think anything compares to these horrors. certainly none that i have ever seen. you guys did very well walking the line in making those horrors known while somewhat abstaining on the true graphic images that could turn a reader away. kudo's to you both.

[cest la vie]

First, let me say what incredible subject to collaborate on.. Historical cruelty I deem it..

Second,
flawlessly written. Absolutely flawless. This is a magnificent piece of history that deserves to hang in the halls of every Holocaust Museum. I do not say that lighly. When I first saw Schindler's List years ago, I made it my mission to really educate myself on the monstrosities of that time in history.
I bow to you both for the bravery in undertaking such a horrific subject.
Thank you my fellow poets.

[raining]

...didn't mean to sound so strident, it just came out.... bye, invisibleman (raining)

[raining]

how can we be so senseless and cruel. I say we, because, after all we are all guilty to some degree. We who allow the firebombing of Japan, and europe during WW11 and the very nature of war whether we think it is "justified" or not, it is still killing. Will we feel justified in Afghanistan in one or two or three years from now? Do the children in African nations forgive us for not giving them the help and food they need. And Haiti, will we do just enough to make ourselves feel "good again" about leaving them (with a 70% unemployment rate) to fend for themselves. Or perhaps, it is right that we cannot do more, and that those we outright kill and outright starve through our industrial-politico machine, will just have to find "there own way"?

[Cool Handless Luke]

for a subject with so much literature and film surrounding it, i still can't help but feel it's such a hard one to tackle. i take on the modern wars from first hand knowledge and there are many atrocities there too but i don't think anything compares to these horrors. certainly none that i have ever seen. you guys did very well walking the line in making those horrors known while somewhat abstaining on the true graphic images that could turn a reader away. kudo's to you both.