Poetry by Jamie McKenzie

Remembering all of you

I wander through this lovely town
On this warm spring day
Sunny and hopeful
But I hear screams
And I shudder
Knowing of your murders
Not so long ago

I see the flowers just emerging
The children smiling
The happy families
The shrine on the top of the hill
But these are not your families
Not your children
Nor your grandchildren

You are gone
And mostly forgotten
Your murders a distant horror
But I still hear your screams
I imagine this day
And this town
Not Judenfrei
"free of Jews"



Note: Even though 50,000 Jewish citizens of this region in Poland were rounded up, crammed into a ghetto, then exterminated in camps like Treblinka, Buchenwald and Dachau in 1943, there is almost no sign of this history when you visit Czestochowa. Thousands come here for a pilgrimage to the Catholic shrine, but few of them know of the horrors. I heard the screams all day.
© Jamie McKenzie, all rights reserved.

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