Stefan Lux. 1936.

I wrote this over two decades ago, about a real man who could not take it any longer, that the world would look away from genocide. And here we are again.

[I thought of this poem after the UN’s impotent vote today. Read more about Stefan Lux here. He wanted to wake up the world to the slaughter happening. His letters before his suicide at the League of Nations, reveal a man disgusted with the so called “official” world ignoring the plight of the Jewish people. I also recommend, to understand from the ground up, the catastrophy, the Shoah, get a copy of Martin Gilbert’s “The Holocaust”. A book I’ve carried around the world with me. Readers - if interested, find my volume of poems about the Holocaust with a preface, here.]

“I do not find a way to reach the hearts of men.”
– suicide note, Stefan Lux

To A Forgotten Czech Jew, 1936.

It was over so quick.
One bang!
Forgotten so quick,
just another event
in the League of Nations.

The next day
after the blood had been
mopped away …..
they went on amending
stupending, pretending
to be building
a better world
mindless of the message
you hurled
among their well-fed midst.

Stefan. Let me say
that at least I
a bastard Jew
so far away
in time and place
still see that bright light
shining.
There was no waste.
The torch of those who care
burns on
though the pigs at the trough
plod on …

This alone matters —
to see what is coming
and to scream
though the whole world believes
the wolf has no teeth
to yell with the desire of David
crazed at the indifference
of a middle class
who now can only hate
those who look just enough
like them.

Stefan. Know I
will too one day burn
like that bush
those eyes of Moses ….
burn to warn – seeing
as I do the swarm,
the glint here in all
their eyes – I, a spy
trodding the beastly heart
of man, governed man
knowing well
their refining ways
as they build a better world
sugared just right to swallow,
a better world, meaning
a better way to do away
with
the Other -
those who look just enough
like them.