I went there in 2004 Lawrence, & it is definitely 'a more elaborate
display now.' And overwhelming, if in a way that builds slowly.
Throughout the tour of Auschwitz, seeing the rooms full of hair,
glasses, suitcases, etc., & the many photos, I felt still, almost
cooly distanced, except it didnt quite feel that way, but when we then
went out to Birkenau, & saw the broken ovens, the layout for so many
more huts than got built, & finally the sculpture with the statement
in all the languages of the countries from which the victims had been
sent, as well as Hebrew & English, saying Let this never happen gain,
well that's when (my particular) dam broke.
It remains with me still....
Doug
On 23-Mar-10, at 9:50 AM, Lawrence Upton wrote:
> I visited Auschwitz in 1973 and remember looking out of a window
> beside
> which the, then at least, basic exhibition consisted of a photograph
> from
> the 1930s of the field outside: a space not far from the furnaces.
> It had
> been a concave meadow. Now the ground was level as a result of the
> human
> ash deposited there in the 40s.
>
> It may well be a more elaborate display now. I have no desire to go
> back
> to see. The single photograph made its point. As, I recall, vaguely,
> did
> Bronowski's simple statements on his tv series - The Scent of Man?
> was it;
> or have I muddled programmes? I recall his hand lifting human ash.
>
> I do not say, at all, that these facts are discoverable from what I
> have
> written; and such puzzling was not my intention; but it was and is
> in my
> mind. In a few hours in 1973, I was 24, I learned things I cannot
> forget;
> I am still learning to apply them. These poems are my latest
> attempt. Sort
> of. In a way. I make it sound more of a programme than it is
Douglas Barbour
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http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
Latest books:
Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
Wednesdays'
http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
The secret
which got lost neither hides
nor reveals itself, it shows forth
tokens.
Charles Olson
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