HOLOCAUST HALL OF REMEMBRANCE
Yad Vashem, Jerusalem
A pit, over it a roof that is a chimney.
In the center, an eternal flame
smokes out of scrap metal that’s flesh, scrolls, wreckage.
On the floor the names of camps
fade backward into the smoke.
Theresienstadt, Dachau, Maidanek, Auschwitz.
Every letter is there, Roman and Hebrew,
German umlauts, Polish accents, Hebrew points,
as if saying, not a word, not a syllable
of this long scream shall ever not be heard.
A sign says only, gentlemen please cover their heads.
Your silly tourist hat will do.
There is no sign to say, the abomination, the horror
of a smoking eternal flame.
No sign asks, what oil for this lamp of dedication?
what gold teeth to adorn this awful temple?
Birds twitter in the roof, sing the same song
they sang for the girl Moses married.
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Author:
Robert Southwick Richmond (
Offline) - Published: January 2nd, 2021 12:13
- Comment from author about the poem: I visited the Hall of Remembrance (Ohel Yizdor) at Yad vaShem, the Holocaust memorial complex in Jerusalem, in 1985. The photograph (a Wikimedia Commons File, the best representation I found online) shows the roof opening, and the space between the walls and the roof where birds perch and twitter, as well as the inscriptions on the floor. The eternal flame is not favorably lighted. The biblical Moses married Zipporah (Exodus 2), whose name might be translated Birdie.
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Comments1
A fine tribute Robert
We have a Memorial Day in the UK every Jan. 27th.
At least birds sing there. They don't at Auschwitz, it's said. Why should birds sing in Hell on earth?
The Jewish observance is done either on Yom haShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), on or near the 27th of Nisan (April 8th this year), or on Ninth of Av (Tisha b'Av), the traditional observance of the destructions of the Temple, in the summer. The rest of the world observes International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27th.
I thought the Hall of Remembrance would be unbearable without the birds.
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