Towards a Culture of Remembering the Past (Satis Shroff)

Towards a Culture of Remembering the Past:

GRUESOME GURS NEVERMORE(Satis Shroff)

The Blue Bridge stretches over the railroad tracks,

A bronze greyish-blue overcoat hangs near the bridge.

The sleek, white intercity Express glides below,

On its way to Basle (Switzerland).

Shortly thereafter a TGV-train from Freiburg to Paris.

The overcoat reminds us of the trains in October 1940,

That took Freiburg's Jewish population,

400 of them,

To Gurs, a concentration-camp in southern France.

And from there to Auschwitz,

To be murdered.

That was state-organised racism.

The deported Jews had lived in Baden,

Saarland and the Pfalz.

6,504 deported Jews.

Most were forced like cattle in wagons

In the summer of 1942,

Deported to concentration camps in Eastern Europe.

A few could escape,

Many died in the inhuman camps,

Which had barbed-wire, Alsatian dogs and armed guards.

The winter was hard.

Some children were saved by help-organisations.

These survivors are the time-witnesses,

Who have lived to tell

Of the cruelty of deportation,

Life in the Lager Gurs,

1027 kilometres away from Freiburg,

And their rescue from the clutches of the Gestapo

In the end.

Ah, in this very town there are people,

Who want to keep this shameful deed in mind.

The Zeitzeugin Renate Haberer-Krauss came in 2010,

To tell us how it was in those days.

The Basic Law now holds for all,

Irrespective of nationality, faith or colour.

We have realised that without respect and tolerance,

There can be no peaceful togetherness.

Tolerance should not lead to indifference.

Let us march in demonstrative silence,

To the blue Wiwili Bridge,

Where the bronze overcoat is.

Denke, Du, was uns geschah.

Think, yes you, of what happened to us.

* * *

HOPE HEALS (Satis Shroff)

Unto you that fear my name

Shall the sun of righteousness

Arise with healing in his wings

(Malachi)

Bridges of peace, friendship and togetherness

Are built on mutual respect,

Tolerance and Miteinander.

We must talk about the symbols

Of tyranny in your villages, towns and cities.

On Memorial Day we gather with earnest faces,

To honour and remember the people

Whose names are engraved on stones,

Who died in the two World Wars.

The suns and husbands have fallen,

But a new ghost raises its ugly head again,

The Neonazis who work for

The Bundesnachrichtendienst.,

Who receive money for their incompetence,

In Thuringen, Saxony,

Hessen and Lower Saxony.

The lesson of faschism taught us

Never to combine

The police with the secret service,

For it would be akin to the Gestapo,

The Geheimen Staatspolizei.

The sixteen secret services in Germany

Cannot coordinate and cooperate.

Since thirteen years have we given

Neonazis a free hand,

Who robbed banks,

Executed Turkish and Greek migrants.

The constitution makes it possible:

‘Germany for the Germany,

All aliens out!’

Long live the Freedom of Speech.

But prithee, where is the protection

Of the migrants and underdogs

Of the society?

Is a new holocaust in the offing?

Yet there is no way

But the path of peace and togetherness.

The ewig gestrigen and the neos

Are still licking the wounds of war,

Wounds that won’t heal,

For they are infected with hate anew,

With brown-propaganda.

War has always been ugly and brutal.

The widows of the on-going krieg in the Hindukush,

The survivors who don’t understand their own world,

After the trauma of Vietnam, Irak, Afghanistan.

When the NATO sirens are tested,

The air vibrates with a monstrous noise.

Fear makes the olde soldier’s heart beats faster,

His pulse races and he almost chokes.

The memories and the fury of war overwhelm him.

Who will restore the faces we’ve adored?

Love, faith, togetherness and peace

Haven’t been lulled to sleep.

We still hear the clarion call

To the dangers of war,

To the hoarse shouts

Of the Neos in the street,

Who strut and fret,

And believe Auschwitz was a lie.

A silence treads like clouds shadows,

Among the people of Germany.

Hope hasn’t abandoned us yet,

Despite the petite victories of the rightists,

In Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

The people in these lands

Think otherwise.

In every good person there is a bad part,

In every bad person there’s a good trait,

Like ying and yang.

We can only appeal to humans,

Hope and pray for peace,

And the old wounds to heal,

Between humans in this world.