WE WERE NONE

A poem that intertwines the Nazi invasion, roundup, massacre, gassing, and crematory.

It started in Germany
When I was a boy
Then spilled into Poland
Once soldiers deployed

Their jackboots came marching
Down the street with a purpose
Their red-and-black swastikas
Only meant they would hurt us

First came the SA
In uniforms brown
Then the SS
Who were talk of the town

We had to pretend
So we gave high salutes
As the troops clicked heels
On the cement with their boots

We waved little flags
Of the German Reich
Though we knew inside
We were nothing alike

So we imitated smiles
And tried badly to blend in
No fooling the Reichstag
Whose patience wore thin

The anthem of the Nazis
Resonated with our street
We knew the Wehrmacht
Would take the world to defeat

Soon after a convoy
Of panzers rolled in
And barred us from leaving
Confined from within

We were shocked by the force
Of foot soldiers that loomed
And knew from their fury
That our lives were doomed

It’d never be the same
One could tell of that
For we were the scapegoat
Whom they poked fun at

Their infantry rifles
Steel helmets and attire
Flame throwers and bayonets
Of our new occupier

The streets were loaded
In a “lightning war”
With the SS insignia
We had never seen before

Heavy shelling and bombing
Made Warsaw surrender
Outclassed and numbered
There was no way to defend her

Poland would pay
And more so, the Jew
Restrained one by one
Faster, two by two

There’d be no escape
And nowhere to hide
In roof spaces and cellars
God knows they tried

The invasion came
Without opposition
Moseyed right in
Without charge of sedition

The cameras were shooting
And so were their rifles
Half-truths and all lies
Of Hitler’s disciples

Hollers and screaming
Suited the backdrop
Graffiti and looting
Forced us to close shop

Books fueled the night
In bonfires and blaze
Then torched our synagogues
That went on for days

‘Jewish pigs’ they called us
As they sacked our supplies
The hate on their faces
Could be seen in their eyes

No mercy was shown
To the Hasidic rabbi
While Hitler thugs laughed
And locals stood by

They severed his beard
Then cut off his side locks
They stomped on his prayer shawl
Then stoned him with rocks

Just the beginning
Of what was to come
Shelled by the Germans
Gunned down, and then some

The streets were gutted
As the assault broke trail
And Jews were shot
At unprecedented scale

Women and children
Were pushed to the side
While young men and old
Defended and died

Whole families split up
But so few reunited
From the Nazi blitz
And race laws they indicted

Arrested in masses
In Yellow Star and armband
Jews were snuffed out
Every inch of the motherland

From the dark skies of Poland
Dropped the Luftwaffe bombs
To cripple our cities
And open way for the pogroms

Bolt action rifles
That caught us off guard
In cases like these
Few that die hard

There were no arrests
Everyone convicted
Even the children
Which no one predicted

They emptied our houses
Then had them burned
No Jews left behind
No stone left unturned

A soldier stepped by
And shook the hair on my head
That same soldier that night
Forced us all out of bed

They broke down our door
When we were asleep
Threw off our covers
And corralled us like sheep

They smashed our windows
And ripped out our drawers
Savagery was how
They settled their scores

They turned over tables
And took what they pleased
Heirlooms and jewelry
Had everything seized

The pickings were slim
They sought gold and diamonds
They found no such things
Over shooting and sirens

Women ushered out
Along with the children
Men were arrested
By orders of Berlin

Father had begged them
To leave us alone
But they beat him up
To his knees he was thrown

A kick to the head
A shove to the ground
That they could coerce us
Made them stick around

Mother let out a scream
When Father hit the floor
From the shower of bullets
That shot through the door

He laid there in blood
And Mother on top
When she ran to his rescue
Was shot, then dropped

We stood there frozen
Too frightened to scream
With our parents both dead
Us next, it would seem

But for some strange reason
They left us alone
Holding each other
We were left on our own

Cheering as they sauntered
Out on their merry way
As if they had just won
The match for the day

Death was the climax
Leave no one alive
If not for the children
In the house now with five

Children soiled in blood
Wrapped around their mother
Then rolled her over
Did the same to the father

No time to think
Or say their goodbyes
They dragged their bodies
Under the backyard skies

The boys starting digging
In the large apple orchard
While the girls kept watch
Without a wince or a word

They dug a hidden grave
Hastily as they could
And turned their bodies in
If they didn’t, who would?

The shovels went quiet
When it was deep to fit
The mother and father
And their photo in it

Their eyes were hollow
While digging the grave
But the girls’ flow of tears
Soon became a wave

The five of them sobbing
Quiet, so not to be heard
One day they’d return
To their parents interred

Neither a proper burial
Nor a procession planned
Not even Kaddish recited
They knew they’d understand

For these the worst of times
Of cold-blooded murder
Of widespread hysteria
Of mental disorder

So we fled in an instant
From the open catacomb
For one thing against us
We were Jews without a home

If they knew we were there
We’d be a fresh target
They’d show us no mercy
Cheap on the black market

We first hid in the basement
Till the coast was clear
Then returned upstairs
To see our parents dead there

In a moment’s raid
We were sudden orphans
Having lost the two
Most important persons

Now strays on the run
And nowhere to hide
Had they really shot them?
Had they really died?

The culprit was a teen
But first a Nazi
Was told to follow orders
Or was he?

He’d boasted the kill
As he staggered out
Discarding us there
Our own lives in doubt

Too horrified to cry
Too dazed to react
Our parents lay dead
With our house ransacked

They laid there in blood
Our mother and father
How much she loved him
And how much he loved her

So now where to go?
Would we survive?
Not one or two of us
Not three, four, but five

The roundup began
As nightfall emerged
Army trucks loaded
Once houses were purged

Those who resisted
Were left for dead
Couldn’t say why
Off the top of my head

Machine guns that night
Only increased our fear
That we might be next
Or the soldiers reappear

So we ran to the woods
Not far from our house
We had to be quiet
More quiet than a mouse

For we had walked in
On a concealed massacre
Unaccounted men
Just about to occur

We hid in the bushes
Scared out of our wits
They lined the men up
Facing dug-out pits

Then pointed their guns
At the back of the head
And pulled the trigger
Till each man was dead

We covered our mouths
Gasping in silence
Each man that fell down
Fell minus defiance

With just one slight sound
In that wooded place
We’d all be exposed
And our lives erased

Oh, they’d take great pride
To throw us with the men
To see five more Jews
Shot in the head again

We were frozen like ice
Despite summer killings
Our lives depended on it
Me and my siblings

The soldiers were barking
At the men on the hill
They stood there stark-naked
Close in for the kill

Thought back to our parents
Shot from point-blank range
The same for these men
Their deaths prearranged

Our town was reduced
When the men were amassed
They dug their own graves
Shot each one till the last

The men kept coming
From nowhere, it seemed
As men predestined
As men unredeemed

The next band of men
Before the assassins
Awaited their turn
Then fell like tenpins

Round after round
The bullets were fired
Dropped dead like birds
But one had misfired

One man still standing
The other men dropped
He stood there trembling
While the world ‘round him stopped

We, at a distance
Couldn’t believe our eyes
Was it the forest fog?
Or a man in disguise?

The gun that misfired
Had missed the old man
Bent-over and shaky
He couldn’t have ran

He looked like Grandpa
Though degraded and nude
They reloaded their guns
His demise they pursued

No time for prayer
The poor man was pelted
The bullets went through him
As even the devil did

The soldiers all laughed
As the guards looked on
The next round of men
A killing marathon

The faster they came
The harder they fell
No eyes to witness
No witness to tell

But we were the eyes
That saw what we saw
We’d never forget
What they did to Grandpa

Far in the backwoods
They stood there aghast
Naked and freezing
Keeled over and trashed

The pits were filled in
With corpses instead
The ground was breathing
With corpses half-dead

When it was all over
They covered the bodies
With the earth of the forest
That only God sees

Just getting warmed up
They reloaded their guns
Men lying on men
Buried with their sons

This went on for hours
We sat there in the dark
With hands over ears
Just a big question mark

How could this happen?
Can this be undone?
Scenes in my head
Playing like a rerun

All that remained
Were empty shells of the bullets
That took lives of more men
And filled graves to the fullest

Their quota was made
To psycho satisfaction
The Jewish roundup
Unruly plan of action

The dead out of sight
The soldiers walked off
A war underway
Overhead the Luftwaffe

Once they all left
We came out from the bushes
Placed a rock on the grave
A lot of good that does

One thing we were sure of
We were not going back
For fear of the roundup
Would deport us on the track

We lost everything
So nothing to lose
We walked further on
Us five and our shoes

Deeper and deeper
Into the forest we went
We finally cried
As we rehashed the event

Since I was the eldest
I held it together
For the sake of my sister
Who’d despair, if you let her

We lumbered for miles
Till our feet could no more
So we huddled together
On the forest floor

We did this again
For three more days
With no end in sight
We walked like strays

Exhausted and starving
Not sure who’d collapse
The four younger ones
Or the eldest, perhaps

There was no turning back
With death at our door
Dragging our feet
Till we couldn’t walk anymore

And just when we thought
It was the end for us there
We met a wall at the edge
Of the forest bare

The wall was much higher
Wrapped in barbed-wire fence
Why a house in the middle
Of a forest so dense?

Our first impression
Was freedom at last
So we yelled from our side
Till someone had passed

Since no one had answered
We walked all round it
Till we came to a clearing
With lean men in outfits

We stared from the outside
Into a courtyard
Our sight in plain view
Caught them off guard

They looked toward us
Like men barely breathing
Not a single word
Not a single feeling

Yet one waved us away
As if to tell us to go
As though we had seen something
Something we shouldn’t know

The men wore pajamas
Some moving at a crawl
Then from the portico
Rang the bell for roll call

And like zombies they filed
One in front of the other
At attention for hours
Till their skin turned color

A guard approached us
Another two from behind
Sealed off by the garrison
We walked right in blind

He pointed his pistol
And told us to freeze
“What are you doing
Here in the trees?”

Didn’t know what to say
This couldn’t be good
We’d be better off
If we were back in the woods

One of the guards mumbled
“These are Jew kids, I think
I can tell from their faces
And how much they stink”

They demanded our names
And whereabouts of our parents
They bribed us with food
And broke our forbearance

Since I was a young boy
They made the decision
To see with my pants down
If I had circumcision

They looked with disgust
“Jews on the run”
“This is their fate”
“These five are done”

No need to deport them
They were already there
They would join the ranks
Of the dead unaware

Then marched us to a zone
While we held hands tight
Then shoved us in a line
But not to the right

Just women and children
All of them crying
Not one escaping
Not one even trying

Trucks carried those
Too feeble to walk
The crippled, blind,
Those who couldn’t talk

The elderly and sick
And the most vulnerable
On the list of the Nazis’
Most intolerable

We were led down a ramp
I looked at my siblings
It felt for the last time
What were these buildings?

We were told to strip down
We were taking a shower
But something inside me
Said we’d soon be devoured

Our hands like a vice grip
We wouldn’t let go
We unwillingly walked
Into a chamber below

Disinfection and bath
Was the only instruction
But we knew more than that
It was our destruction

After we undressed
And stood there exposed
They steered us to shower
Locked in and enclosed

The showers were turned on
But baffled to think
That water would run out
Was my first instinct

On one side of the “shower”
They shrieked and they yelled
What discharged was not water
Only worse and smelled

From the thick walls within
We scratched with our claws
We begged them to open
But answered with applause

The guards on the outside
Would peep through the hole
Till all were face down
Till all took their toll

Eyes were rolled back
And mouths wide open
Suffocated air
Not one had awoken

It was gas that leaked
Known as Zyklon B
All of us murdered
In the first degree

After it was done
The gas chamber unlocked
Not a sound from within
As though time had stopped

The corpses dragged out
Like lambs to the slaughter
Where is the mother
And her son and her daughter?

The hair they cut off
Removed metal from the teeth
Fed bodies to the furnace
In secret underneath

For the world above
Knew nothing below
Ashes from the chimney
How could they not know?

The stench lingered on
Of the bodies that burned
Of the faces missing
Of a love unreturned

Our bones did not burn
As fast as they’d like
So they ground them in powder
Nazi minds think alike

They poured them down rivers
And filled ashes in ponds
Till the waters went murky
From blue color to bronze

The remains of the bodies
Cremated at once
Would take weeks to dispose of
And sometimes months

Ashes strewn in the fields
As compost and landfill
Mass transports only halted
Once all Jews dead, not until

Hundreds became millions
Those unfit for labor
And all because of one
The result of a hater

It started with feelings
Then pronounced into terms
Legislated in law
History reaffirms

Every dream we dreamt
Every wish we made
Every passing shadow
Every message conveyed

We make or break it
In the way we live
In the way we think
If we ever forgive

No settling of scores
No dwelling on pain
Otherwise the hurt
Keeps coming back again

We hold on to the faces
Of those we once cherished
Remnants of the gas chambers
Of the millions who perished

Some died from execution
Upon arrival by train
Others from torpedo bombers
And the aerial campaign

Unreturned from the capture
In the ghettos they famished
From deportation to camps
In thin air they vanished

For we, too, were a family
Seven and alive
But that ended abruptly
So then we were five

And not soon long after
We, too, were undone
From gas to crematory
Then we were none

Michael Botermans
© May/June 2024