You Don’t Mean That
Bleichman, who survived,
was rounded up in Hungary.
The Orthodox, he says,
were dirty to start with,
pretended to be stupid,
not to know German
or even Hungarian, and looked
with equal contempt
at Germans and secular Jews – all
the porkeaters.
In photos, a *Sturmbannführer,
grinning like his men
with the original form of humor,
is cutting off beards. The Jews
are trying to look tolerant,
silly, as one does
with bullies. If
one looks without prejudice,
one can imagine the fun, and
the loathing the old men’s
smell inspired.
Yet they ascended to heaven
as smoke, as victims,
and there no one condemns
their greasy gabardines
and beards; and no one
on earth is so cruel
as to judge them, except,
with immense irony, Bleichman.
I imagine a quiet, somehow Northern
room, a community
of such rooms, a world.
Behavior here
has a ritual quality
and is genuinely
kind, patient, thoughtful,
without exception, at whatever cost.
The surrounding landscape
is equally spare and conserved,
yet fertile, well-nourished by bones.
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