Today is the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. I’ve thought for a long time about what I might be able to write, about what I could say to both honour and preserve the memory of such terror coming to an end. Do I write about the time when I was once surrounded by neo-Nazis and Holocaust revisionists who wove a network of neo-fascists across Europe, Canada, America and South America?
Do I write about old Steve Bendersky, who was like a beloved uncle to me when I was a child and whose arm bore the faded blue numbers that I once seriously contemplated tattooing onto my own wrist? Whose Shabbat candles I inherited after his death and which I still light every Friday evening?
Do I write about discovering my Jewish roots, and how my family tree research has come to an abrupt halt as I realize that it’s very likely most of my father’s relatives perished in the war?
If I started to write about the heartache that Auschwitz represents both to me and to Jews as a population, along with the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of gays and lesbians, gypsies and political prisoners in WW2, I would probably just sit here, start crying and be unable to stop, much less write a single word. So instead, I want to talk about my own memories of the concentration camp.
I visited Auschwitz once, during the summer of 2001, the year after I graduated university and worked as an English teacher in South Korea. Instead of doing something respectable like paying off my defaulted student loans, I decided that I had to journey back to eastern Europe that summer – I had to track down for myself the roots of the hatred that had surrounded my early life.
I took these photos at Auschwitz-Birkenau and I wrote this long poem, Remnants of Sunlight, which I published in my first poetry book. Today, on the 70th anniversary of the WW2 genocide that represents the worst of humanity, I can’t think of a better way to commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz than to republish this poem that is so close to my heart here, on my own blog.
Many of the verses and imagery encompassed here were scribbled while I stood there, in the empty barracks of Birkenau – it was a sunny, beautiful day, in contrast to the horror that surrounded me. The planks underneath my feet snapped and crackled as I walked among the barracks, amid the three-tiered bunk slots, touching the worn, rain-soaked wood that had once let in the cold, bitter winter winds that killed thousands of malnourished prisoners.
I listened to the frogs and crickets singing through the knee-high grass, and imagined that the lush, verdant greenery of my surroundings had sprouted up from the ashes and crumbling bones of countless nameless victims. I felt the great big emptiness of those awful barracks corrode through my entire being and leave a huge, empty hole in my soul.
And then I wrote this poem.
Last night, my fate made an unannounced appearance.
upon my Hungarian lace and Polish linen.
the breathing of doves perched on wooden fences.
the birds sing louder, gravel paves the horizon.
in this geography of asphalt.
If I am dead, who will write these verses for you?
and yellowed newspapers rustling underneath.
across my rumpled blue bedspread.
In my classroom in downtown Seoul, the windows are always open with voices.
as though stained by the blood underneath their feet.
I smell chickens in the alpine air: wild fowl, wet feathers, muddy paths.
seed, core, meat, skin, and stem.
Like an apple, I leave parts of myself everywhere.
The shaman anoints my forehead with red liquid.
His hands smell of fermented herbs, berries, cocoa leaves, leather.
but there is something in you which will not die.
My ears pick up the noise of the jungle, rushing water and tall blades of grass.
The air is viscous and green with thunderstorms.
a drowning rat clawing out of its own frailty.
How much determination is required to breathe?
(take in air, for example).
A body will fight for survival.
the last one of a set.