Zabludow
Stone at The Treblinka Death Camp Memorial
I was inspired to write
this poem by an email from Alice Grossman who was writting me
in response to my email about my recent trip to Poland. I was
also inspired by the writtings of the survivors of Zabludow in
the Zabludow Yizkor (memorial) book.
by Tilford
Bartman
I know
a place where once even the children
without using a calendar or a watch, could know the day of the
week
the change of the four seasons, the coming of the holidays
. . . life in circular motion.
Now this
place is an empty shell
which reverberates with the sound of silence,
of absence, of non-existence.
A hollow
ear-shattering piercing noise
Four hundred years
of what was, and who used to be.
Not a
grave, not a stone
Ashes scattered upon the four winds.
How will we gather them in the end of days.
In my
mind this silence is broken
by the innocent souls of Jewish Zabludow
who cry out to me in sadness
