Where Was Man?

Where Was Man?

“Where was God in Auschwitz?” That is the question so commonly asked.

My answer

Where was Man?

Where was Man when Khuper made those walls

That killed 8 at a time, 800 in a day, 5,600 in a week, and a million in a month?

Where was Man?

Where was Man when Anja was beat with a boot,

and all those to the right were taken to the heat

When that old mans hat was lost in the flow,

Just so that a guard could have a little extra dough

Where was Man when the symbol of transportation

was turned into a symbol of hell in this nation

Where was Man?

Man. Was. Gone.

Where was Man when Mandelbuam, once calm and collected,

Once eating and laughing and loving with his son and wife,

took a number, Lost individuality while maintaining life

For a cause that would be in vain. Life.

Where was Man when I counted to a hundred,

each number a lash to my back.

Where was Man?

Man. Was. Gone.

Where was Man, when scar after scar,

Like a star on my soul. Man took a symbol of pride,

Lied to our society, while destroying us quietly.

Mocking our blood publicly, and ferociously annihilating our freedom.

Where was Man?

Man. Was. Gone.

I have seen my life taken from me, piece by piece

Like some sentient mentality, breaking off just to see

Me, In the darkness, trying to get sufficient sustenance,

While maintaining a subsequence of routine in this Bloody Regime.

I have seen what I thought was mine, owned and signed,

ripped apart merely because of a weighted word. Jude. Jew.

That name, like a stamp, given to the masses.

To separate, segregate, and eventually operate

On millions. Pigs to the slaughter? No.

Souls to their reaper? Yes. For a soul did we all have.

From Richiev, to Fela,

From Miss Stefanska, to Tosha

From Lolek, to Mr. Ilzeki.

All faces in a tower of sorrow and nostalgia,

All souls reaped for their “impurities”

the “specially treated” ones of that disintegrating society.

Why was Man gone?

Thanks to Man, I have lost the loves of my life, my wife and son.

Thanks to Man, with their sudden sobriety, our entirety, 17,500,000

Have only now been found.

Thanks to Man, I have felt the true effects of the absence of presence,

And the presence of Absence.

To desire Anja by my side, yet to never again be satisfied.

To wish Richiev were here, and yet year after year,

I know that he will never grow up to see me,

Eye, to eye. Hmph. An eye for an eye.

That will only make Man blind.

So Man, I challenge you.

I challenge you to do,

Something. Anything.

I challenge you to know your past atrocities,

so that the possibilities of repeating these,

Horrors, dwindles into an example of something never to be done.

I challenge you to do better than the World has ever seen.

For they have not seen. Make them hear the absence of presence,

And the presence of Absence.

Make them feel.

I challenge you. Man.

I. Challenge. You.