Merchandising
Business was brisk in the market
At the edge of the Ponary Forest
Shoes, trousers, coats, dresses, galoshes
for sale;
Two navy coats cost one-twenty rubles;
A man asked for something for his wife;
The Shaulist found a Jew in the fourth line
Her clothes were near enough the wife’s
size;
Marked for murder she did not need them;
Drinking vodka in the October cold,
The death merchants waited for the next
truck.
Appropriating
Morning saw the peasants’ wagons arrive;
In Radzilow the throng filled the streets;
A bird’s eye view framed a town carnival:
A carnival of looting empty homes.
They had locked the Jews in a huge barn;
Jozef Ekstowicz and a pal doused
The barn with petrol and set it on fire;
His gran wanted one of the empty homes;
Godlewski summarily refused her;
She said her grandson’s deed gave her a
right.
Benefiting
In Vitlich faces watched from windows
Even before the sound of breaking glass;
This happened on the morning after:
SA thugs beat the butcher Herr Marx
And threw him into the rear of the truck
Where five other battered Jews were
bleeding;
They looted the place leaving little;
Frau Marx stood outside the shop her hands
raised;
‘Why are you people doing this to us?’
‘What have we ever done to you?’ Silence.
Renting
Yes: Leaving the ghetto was verboten;
Shelter cost an arm-and-a-leg per head;
Food could be got at black-market prices;
The dark-blue police were ever hunting;
If the Jews were trouble you could ‘waste’ them;
Petelka burned a whole family;
Schmaltzowniks extorted for keeping stum;
They rented the victims their lives as long
As it was profitable to do so.
Hunting
In Siedliska the farmers bought scythes
At the local cooperative store;
‘You’ll need them for today’s roundup’;
The prize for catching Jews was vodka or
sugar;
They took the clothes from still warm
bodies;
They went to mass on Sunday where the
priest,
The voice of authority in the village
Saw them in the murdered victims’ clothes;
He said nothing; though ‘the time will come
when
These souls will have to be paid for’.
Arriving
A sixty-car train arrived from Warsaw
The Jews had to wait their turn to die;
The locals sold them food and water;
Vodka and kisses got around the guards;
Cups of water cost one hundred zlotys;
Drunken guards had their games to play;
They would take money to let Jews escape,
And shoot them as they tried to run away;
The living dead filed up the himmelweg;
The bishops everywhere who knew were silent.
Dispatching
from Treblinka
The train dispatcher checked the bundles;
The bundles were loaded into freight-cars,
The separate categories labelled;
Men’s suits, jackets, trousers;
Men’s tall boots, and shoes;
Women’s dresses, blouses, sweaters, hats;
Bundles of underwear, children’s clothes;
Swaddle clothes, pillows, cushions;
Suitcases: pencils, fountain pens, and
glasses;
Separate bundles of canes and umbrellas;
Spools of thread of every colour;
Leather for shoes, bags and clothes;
In cardboard boxes: razors, clippers;
Mirrors, pots, pans, washbasins;
Carpentry tools: saws, planes, hammers;
Also shipped was shaved women’s hair;
The form recorded ‘military cargo’;
Most transports snaked back to Germany
To ease life for the ordinary Germans;
It was patriotic to keep what was useful.
Digging:
Post-war Kopacze
Diggers pose for a formal photograph;
Seven relaxed policemen stand with them;
They have been digging in the hilly soil;
Rowed in front are the fruits they have
reaped:
Over twenty human skulls and some bones.
You cannot see the flesh or braids of hair
Of murdered Jews buried in the ash pits,
Or the teeth ripped from the jaws of the
skulls
By locals gold-digging in Treblinka;
The harvested teeth will bleed forever.
Disposing
The Nazis sold the looted possessions
As bargains to the Marxs’ own neighbours;
One woman bought Frau Marx’s own pillow;
She knew for what she paid it was a steal;
But she buried the thing deep in a closet;
She could never bring herself to use it;
Years after the murdered millions she asked
What should she do with Frau Marx’s pillow;
But there was no redemption in disposal;
The Marxs had suffered a garbage death.
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