Auschwitz - Gaza

Yesterday’s Auschwitz, Today’s Gaza
Victims of the past,
Torturers in future
Are we?

“What happened here?” whispered a child
“People….they did bad things…
…..to another,” sighed a mother
“How?”
“…………………”
“Wh-y?”
“It was a war”
“Oohh”

By its barbed-wire fence she wonders
What is past;
a grain of sand in a corner of one’s mind?

Towards the serene path to the Wall of Death* she ponders
Surrounded by the blackened walls;
smeared with traces of hundred thousands’ souls;
its smoke binds the air forever with silent sombreness
She shudders
Yet its eeriness was momentary

“Why they sleep in straw(mat)?” asked the child
“It was a war”
“Is it their bed?”
“Indeed”
“Why they don’t sleep in bed?”
“……”

Her son is looking for Bruno*
Her son is looking for Bruno’s friends
By the wall of tormented faces in their striped pyjamas
He was dumbfounded
That they were never to be found

Where can be an end
Would it be a place like this in Gaza
Sixty, a hundred and sixty one from now

Are we forgetting them
And already letting it happening again?
Eli Wiesel must know this
For such walls are raised once again;
twice in his lifetime


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*Block 11, Auscwitz I concentration camp where prisoners were being shooted or tortured in adverse weather condition
 
**The central character in "The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas"