Holocaust Memorial Day 2021
Holocaust Memorial Day
27/01/2021
I found this poem in my A Poem For Every Night of the
Year, Ed. Allie Esiri and thought it was beautiful. I wanted to commemorate
it, and remember this day because what happened during the Holocaust has not become any less horrific as the time has passed. We are also in a world of hate speech
and xenophobia and the casual anti-Semitism in the UK and elsewhere is far too
worrying to not remember this day and the dangers discrimination poses.
I wanted to share the poem, but also a little history too. It is important that we do not forget, and that we show our Jewish neighbours, and the other minority groups that were targeted by the Nazis, that we care, and that we will not let this happen again.
The liberation of Auschwitz
January 27th is known as Holocaust Memorial Day
because 27th January 1945 was the date the soviet army liberated the
largest of the Nazi's extermination and concentration camps, Auschwitz. They found: eighty eight
pounds of glasses, hundreds of prosthetic limbs, twelve thousand pots and pans,
forty-four thousand pairs of shoes.
Soldiers found thousands of people left to die by SS guards
who fled the camps after trying to cover their crimes:
‘[T]he Germans began to destroy evidence of their
crimes. They murdered most of the Jews who had worked in Auschwitz’s gas
chambers and crematoria, then destroyed most of the killing sites. The
destruction didn’t end there: The Germans ordered prisoners to tear down many
buildings and systematically destroyed many of their meticulous records of camp
life. They also took steps to move much of the material they had looted from
the Jews they murdered elsewhere.’ [1]
The soviet soldiers that liberated Auschwitz did not know
what they would find. It had been the site responsible for 1.1 million murders.
With help from the Polish government, former prisoners later turned the site into a memorial and museum.
Anne Frank
Anne Frank was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, in 1929,
and because of the rampant antisemitic sentiments, hatred of Jews, and the poor
economic realities for them in Germany, Anne’s parents Otto and Edith decided
to move to Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
In 1939, Germany invaded Poland and WW2 began. In 1940,
Germany invaded The Netherlands. The Nazi control introduced more anti-Jew laws
which made life for the population very difficult. All Jews had to wear the
Star of David on their clothes to mark them, and rumours started that they would
have to leave The Netherlands, especially when a notice about a ‘call up’ was
issued. The Franks decided to go into hiding in the annex of Otto’s business
premises at Prinsengracht 263.
It is from this hideaway that Anne Frank started keeping a
diary, now known as The Secret Annex or The Diary of a Young Girl.
The secret annex was discovered in 1944 and raided.
The hideaways were deported to Auschwitz, on a journey which took three
days, in closely packed cattle wagons, with little food and water, and a barrel
for a toilet.
Anne, Margot (Anne’s sister), and their mother (Edith), were
sent to a labour camp for women, Otto to a camp for men, whereas around 350
people from that transport were immediately taken to gas chambers and murdered.
In 1944, Anne and Margot were deported to the Bergen-Belson concentration
camp. Their parents remained at Auschwitz. Anne and Margot contracted typhus,
and in February 1945 they both died from it. Margot first, and then Anne. Anne would have been fifteen.
Otto was the only person from the secret annex to survive
the war. He was liberated from Auschwitz in 1945. Only once he had returned to The
Netherlands did he find his family had not survived. He published Anne’s diary
and hoped it would make the world aware of the dangers of discrimination and
racism.
The annex in Amsterdam has now been turned into a museum called The Anne
Frank House.
Museum website: https://www.annefrank.org/en/
The poem
The Shape of Anne Frank’s Soul, Louise Greig
What shape does my soul take?
Is it round, like the moon
pale and ghostly, suspended above me
or is it a dark pool at my feet
an ellipse
deep
and infinite
Or is my soul a square?
A bare room
somewhere
left behind.
Or a book lined
in velvet
only to let
rare thoughts fill it
Perhaps my soul is a shape
Only fit for a soul,
a blanket, a bed,
an empty bowl
Or not a shape at all
but words on the wind’s gust
earth to earth
ashes to ashes
dust to dust
References:
[1] https://www.history.com/news/auschwitz-liberation-soviets-holocaust
https://www.hmd.org.uk/what-is-holocaust-memorial-day/this-years-theme/
https://www.annefrank.org/en/anne-frank/
A Poem For Every Night of the Year, Ed. Allie Esiri,
(London: Macmillan Children’s Books, 2016), p34.
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