Poetry by Survivor Martin Spett

The Calling (1982)

Awake oh you tormented souls
Cut down in the prime of life,
Rise up and take your due revenge,
The time is now, history calls.
Let the historians thrive
On your untimely past.
Do not let them forget
The sadistic behavior of men
What brought the sun to set.
Let no historian distort
The reason for your demise,
For innocence was extinguished
In flames of hatred
Only to remember your sacrifice.
Bestow the duty of vigil
On a budding generation,
Let them recall the horror
Of the six million Jews, – a Nation.
Like a crustacean edged in the Rock of Time,
To remember is a duty, a must,
For generations to come to ring the chime.

Dedicated to second-generation survivors of the Holocaust on Yom Hashoah, April 20, 1982.

 

The Flames

Black is the stone
Shiny, if awashed in Jewish tears,
Etched by artist’s chisel
Depicting Temples of historical years.
Imprisoned is the Jewish soul
In black abyss of memory
Which took six million as its toll.
Haunted by lamented revery.
Flickering are the flames
For the voices that were stilled,
For children’s cries
And families lives unfulfilled.
Cold are the ashes
Of once great synagogues,
Where wind now lashes
Over their grass-covered graves,
Beware you demagogues:
For a dangerous web you weave,
“Crystal Night” was the beginning
Of terror that gripped the world.
Bygone days are painful memories
For ambivalence humanity pays with guilt.
Of slaughtered innocence
And Jewish culture’s past glories.

This poem is the dedication on a sculpture displayed at the Conservative Synagogue, Adath Israel of Riverdale, New York.

 

The Survivors (1983)

The silent tears, unspoken words,
The dark horizons left behind
The pagan hordes in a dream we find,
For the past that was, like a vise do us bind.
Solitude brings back memories,
Of families warmth that will never be.
Of childhood lost, of untold stories,
The world is never destined to see.
Streets of cities where we were born,
Echo with Jewish children’s ghostly sounds,
For the hounding shadows like a thorn,
Embedded in hearts of survivors
Dispersed in different lands.
Out of the ashes we came,
A remnant of a once great society to claim,
Our rights in the world community,
Firmly planting our roots,
On a friendly soil of a free nation,
Giving life to a new generation,
To carry the banner of our heritage and toil,
For justice, liberty and the Jewish nation.

 

Reflection (1992)

The heaven did not darken
Nor thunder or lightning strike.
The sunny sky prevailed,
Sun rays reflecting on railroad tracks.
The engine wailed,
Pulling sealed box-cars with human cargo
To its appointment with destiny.
Flames obliterated not only the Temples of men
But the soul itself.
Rivers of blood couldn’t quench
The thirst of the beast,
That emerged from the belly of the earth.
Innocence was slaughtered and burned,
A crime that humanity named the Holocaust.

 

The Children

Why would anyone dispute
What was self evident, the truth.
Those gaping ovens of hell,
If they could only tell
The stories of the millions of souls
That perished in their firey bowels.
They came by train loads.
Cattle cars were their coaches.
There was no hope for them when the y approached
The “showers” and the smoke-belching chimneys.

The long marching lines of innocent children
Going to their death like helpless sheep.
Their eyes reflecting fear
But, their proud head held high.
I still can see them in my sleep,
Although many years have gone by:
As they huddled together for protection.
The older children showing the younger ones affection.

In the face of death,
Not one of them wept.
Each one showing their Jewish pride, The STAR OF DAVID.
They walked with their arms about the younger ones’ shoulders
To show their courage and defiance that grew even bolder
As they neared their doom.
They knew of their fate
As the hour grew late.
They knew that when they were torn from their mother’s loving arms
That it was forever!

4/80

War

Arid are the sands of time.
Cracked are the hopes of men
As of lime.
Never to learn from the past,
To live in peace at last.
Generation after generation,
Here are the cry of war,
To know peace no more.

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