We, the Dead, Accuse!

 

No crosses rot upon our graves,

No headstones gently lean

No lattice wrought or twined wreaths

No bowing angels screen. 

No willow tree or gold-writ rhyme

No candle never quenched 

We rot in pits, white-splashed with lime

With rain our bones are drenched

Our whitened skulls without defense

Trembled on barbed wire fence

Our scattered ash fills may an urn

Ans still the bodies burn.

A chain we are, which the earth wears
And the wind blows like seed,
We count the days and months and years
We know not time nor speed.
Our numbers grow by day and night
We swell beneath your ground
And upward press until our might
Will burst our earthly bound.
Then skull to skull and bone to bone
We 'll mount the judgment throne
And bring to all the fearful news:
Lo! We, the Dead, Accuse!

The following is one of two poems written on 8.3.1944 by an unknown female Jew prisoner of Czech nationality, on her way to crematorium in Auschwitz II - Birkenau. The note with the poems handed by a Sonderkommando prisoner and then smuggled out of the camp to Prague. 

Στο μνήμα μας επάνω δε θα βρεις σταυρό,
ούτε πολυκαιρίσιες πλάκες ραγισμένες.
Δε θα βρεις άνθη, μήτε κάγκελα από σίδερο χυτό,
ούτε και Χερουβείμ με παναγνές μορφές θλιμένες.

Κεριά δε στάζουν πάνω μας δάκρυ καφτό.
Κι ο ίσκιος του κυπαρισιού είναι μακριά μας.
Μ' άσβεστη ποτισμένοι λιώνουμε στους λάκκους μας σωρό
και μόν' ο άνεμος σφυρίζει αγριωπός στα κόκκαλα μας.

Άσπρα κρανία κρεμασμένα δω κι εκεί
πάνω στους φράχτες με το σύρμα τ' αγκαθένιο.
Κι η στάχτη μας σκορπά και χάνεται κι αυτή
στους πέντε ανέμους - σύννεφο ασημένιο.

Σ' απόκοσμη διαβαίνουμε αράδα σκοτεινή,
σπόροι που μας κυλά το φύσημα τ' ανέμου.
Κι όλο μετρούμε: μήνες - χρόνοι μακρυνοί,
καθώς, προσμένουμε το τέλος του πολέμου.

Στρώμα το στρώμα αυξαίνουμε και πιο πολύ
μέσα στου λάκκου τ' αγριο, πηχτό σκοτάδι.
Αδιάκοπα η σάρκα μας χορταίνει σας τη γή.
Θε να ρθει όμως η στιγμή να σπάσει η θύρα του Άδη.

Τότε θα βγούμε - λιτανεία φοβερή 

σκελετωμένα κόκκαλα. Κι όπως θα προχωρούμε
Θε ν' αντηχήσει βροντερή η άγρια μας κραυγή:
"Εμείς, οι τραγικοί νεκροί, κατηγορούμε!"

αποδοσή: Ν. Παπανδρέου, 1979

 

Noon, 27.1.1945. Units of the 322nd Rifle Division, part of the 60th Army, of Soviet Red Army reaches the main gate of Auschwitz I concentration camp. There they found 7000 inmates in unbearable condition and 600 dead bodies. They were all left behind as 9 days earlier (18.1.1945) the SS ordered the evacuation to the west of the aprx. 60000 prisoners of Auschwitz Complex camps. One of the greatest insult in the history of Man was over...

For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity, 

where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women and children, 

mainly Jews, from various countries of Europe.

Auschwitz-Birkenau 1940 - 1945

Εις Μνήμειν. / In Memory.

  

ps. All photos are from the Auschwitz I & Auschwitz II - Birkenau Memorial site.

Taken on Sunday 9th of October 2016.

Black Dawn...

«Απ’ τα τσακάλια δε γλιτώνεις με εύχες ή παρακάλια».

K. Βάρναλης

Congress of the German Antifascist Action, Berlin 10.7.1932

"Fascism is a historic phase of capitalism; in this sense it is something new and at the same time old.

In Fascist countries capitalism continues to exist, but only in the form of Fascism; and Fascism can be combated as capitalism alone, as the nakedest, most shameless, most oppressive, and most treacherous form of capitalism.

But how can anyone tell the truth about Fascism, unless he is willing to speak out against capitalism,which brings it forth? What will be the practical results of such truth? Those who are against Fascism without being against capitalism, who lament over the barbarism that comes out of barbarism, are like people who wish to eat their veal without slaughtering the calf.

They are willing to eat the calf, but they dislike the sight of blood. They are easily satisfied if the butcher washes his hands before weighing the meat. They are not against the property relations which engender barbarism; they are only against barbarism itself. They raise their voices against barbarism, and they do so in countries where precisely the same property relations prevail, but where the butchers wash their hands before weighing the meat."

(Bertolt Brecht - Writing the Truth: Five Difficulties, 1935)

Graffiti in Barcelona. In memory of Pavlos Fissas


Το φασισμό πάτα στο λαιμό...

Για τον Παύλο (10.4.1979 - 18.9.2013)