Visiting Oświęcim; Auschwitz I and Birkenau was an experience I struggle to articulate. One often turns to poetry when having difficulty coming to terms with certain subjects. This one is entitled "Hair.", inspired by the exhibit displaying the hair forcefully taken from female victims; Nazis often also stole this hair to make articles of clothing from; reinforcing the dehumanising treatment of those forcefully "relocated" into concentration camps.
Hair.
One massive clump,
One woman,
One body,
No soul.
Each strand no longer its own,
Each strand no longer alone,
Perhaps not quite together,
Enmeshed in this mortal coil,
Their suffering will be remembered forever,
Their hair; the fruits of their toil.
Despite appearing one grey mass,
One can almost feel the impasse,
Looking through the glass,
One always asks,
How did humanity allow for this to occur?
It may now seem blur,
But it was once a lived reality,
Even though the strands are flimsy,
They were far from it,
And now, their testimonies relay a form of immortality.
Existential dread,
A privilege for the authors, poets, philosophers,
When all they cared for was bread,
For it meant another day,
A chance for them to one day ensure nobody would forget,
Those whose ashes lay,
In the fields of charred destruction,
Bitter defeat, and the sweet, victorious anticipation of May,
But lay ahead much reconstruction, unwanted seduction, and further disruption.
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