Sure I could write about what I have been doing, thinking, and feeling for days, but as far as making meaning and processing this is not my method. To really capture the moment I am in, I take pictures. To deal with the things I am feeling and thinking, I write. So I have a few pictures and poems that represent my experience.
Umschlagplatz
The place of taking away
Takes my breath away
Imagine being here
In that time
Heart racing,
Mind spinning,
Eyes crying,
Mouth screaming,
Nevertheless,
you were put on the train,
Like cattle being sent to slaughter,
Against your will,
Knowing that nothing good
was on the other end of those tracks.
Will there ever be happiness again?
Will you see anyone you love again?
Will you see the morning?
Or will the rest of your life
Be this day on this train
Being taken away from
The misery you have known
Toward an unknown misery.
You want to hope,
But that well is dry,
There is no hope left,
It too has been taken away
On the Umschlagplatz.
Written
July 2, 2024
Warsaw, Poland
Butterflies of Treblinka
Green trees and grass grow
Under the white puffy clouds
In the Polish sky.
Butterflies flutter about,
Landing here and there
Amongst the rocks
And blades of grass.
There was a time
When no butterflies
Or green things
Would dare live here.
Nothing lived here,
As was intended
By those who hated
All life
Unlike their own.
Ants crawl in the shade
Of lofty trees.
Birds hop on the sand.
Large stones mark
The njuries
Done on this land,
So long ago.
The sun shines now
In a place
Where darkness
Once reigned.
People crawled out
Of train cars, barely alive,
Looking for respite,
But finding only terror.
Stripped naked
Of clothes, of dignity,
Of hair, of hope,
and finally
Of life.
People walk silently now
Observing, trying to
Conceive of the inconceivable,
Making discoveries,
Making connections,
Making peace,
Making meaning.
Asking why
With no answer.
900,000 souls
Never left this place.
They still exist in the air
That was once contaminated
To kill them,
And in the soil
Now green with life
Begging us to remember
What happened here,
That they died,
And most importantly
That they lived.
They say butterflies
Are a symbol of change,
Of transformation,
Of hope.
We must bring the transformation,
The change,
The hope for the future
Of the whole world
From the air in Poland
To our corners of the world.
We are the
Butterflies of Treblinka.
Written
July 2, 2024
Treblinka, Poland