Poetry competition CLOSED 19th February 2015 7:27pm
WINNER
LobodeSanPedro
LobodeSanPedro
RUNNERS-UP:
kriticool
and toniscales
Holocaust
Poetry Contest Description
How it feels in the concentration camps ?
By asking to take the perspective of a POW, it shows that you haven't got the remotest idea what concentration camps where all about. Best, you should take some history lesson yourself before starting such a competition.
it was a war, they were prisoners. what's not to get
Countless, nameless
And my eyes
clouded by tears
would rest on black plumes
the silence
deafening to hear
how long
before it's I
having ridden on deaths train
might shower
or feed those snarling dogs
Countless, nameless
And my eyes
clouded by tears
would rest on black plumes
the silence
deafening to hear
how long
before it's I
having ridden on deaths train
might shower
or feed those snarling dogs
The first concentration camps were erected BEFORE the war and the first victims were Germans, mostly of Jewish faith. Were they POWs?
According to the Geneva Convention,POWs are endowed with certain rights and this is what you can't say of the millions of victims, brutally murdered by the Nazis.
What about the millions of women and children killed there? POWs? No way!
And a last point, can anyone of us really expect to know how it felt to be in one of those camps?
Therefore, this "competition" seems to be highly inappropriate and should be cancelled.
According to the Geneva Convention,POWs are endowed with certain rights and this is what you can't say of the millions of victims, brutally murdered by the Nazis.
What about the millions of women and children killed there? POWs? No way!
And a last point, can anyone of us really expect to know how it felt to be in one of those camps?
Therefore, this "competition" seems to be highly inappropriate and should be cancelled.
Another Day Here
Ragged Clothes,
Matted Tears, Coughing and Weezing From the Gases,
Where am I.
Why am I here.
Other Childern Like me Here,
Fear in their Eyes, Confusion,
Longing For home,
Ribs Poking Out,
Children Weeping, Longing For Their Homes,
Shaved heads,
Barbed Fences,
Is this so We Can't Get Out?
What did We do Wrong.
Why are we Here,
Ragged Clothes,
Very Little Food,
I want to go Home.
Why am I a Prinsoner,
Why.
I wish we Could go Home,
Instead of Being Stuck in a Barbed, Fenced, Dome.
Ragged Clothes,
Matted Tears, Coughing and Weezing From the Gases,
Where am I.
Why am I here.
Other Childern Like me Here,
Fear in their Eyes, Confusion,
Longing For home,
Ribs Poking Out,
Children Weeping, Longing For Their Homes,
Shaved heads,
Barbed Fences,
Is this so We Can't Get Out?
What did We do Wrong.
Why are we Here,
Ragged Clothes,
Very Little Food,
I want to go Home.
Why am I a Prinsoner,
Why.
I wish we Could go Home,
Instead of Being Stuck in a Barbed, Fenced, Dome.
Not everyone will approve of every topic discussed in the forums and written about for competitions, and that's fine and expected since everyone is allowed their opinions in life. I'm going to assume that this topic will be treated with the utmost care, so as not to disrespect in anyway, those countless people who were affected by the Holocaust. Another idea to approach this would be to think of it in terms of the liberation aspect and those who survived, even though writing about how it was/felt to be imprisoned. While many of us can only surmise what that was like, it can still be done with a bit of grace. Also if you personally know someone who was there, that would be another avenue--interview them for their thoughts if they are willing. Regardless, there's always the choice not to participate as well, if you feel too strongly averse to the topic.
"The idea of this comp. came into my mind after watching the moving Inglorious Bastards directed by Tarantino."
I would personally recommend watching "Schindler's List" and "The Pianist". I used to show "The Pianist" to students in my middle school literature class. I sought to expose them to a vivid account of what happens when men forget the meaning of "humanity" ...
... And I think both films speak more to what you're seeking in this writing challenge.
I would personally recommend watching "Schindler's List" and "The Pianist". I used to show "The Pianist" to students in my middle school literature class. I sought to expose them to a vivid account of what happens when men forget the meaning of "humanity" ...
... And I think both films speak more to what you're seeking in this writing challenge.
pitch black sunrise
i danced to touch da ground
but they laughed at me
say, "Dats right boy show us how niggas dance"
one of 'em started on his guitar
another da fiddle
my body twitchin' like Sunday chicken
fresh snapped neck
i can still hear 'em all
and da creek of da rope pulling dat limb
though one's cut off my ear
they wanted souvenirs
things for they kids I reckon'
i barely feel da blade takin' each toe
da lil' gal smiles
im choked out like midnight from da sky
with it's stars too
sky will be white again
like da sheets that done dis to me
Jesus didn't save me
hope he does better by my chillin' cause
I can't breathe
http://www.blackyouthproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/RubinStacyLynching1.jpg
Tańczyłem dotknąć ziemi
ale oni śmiali się ze mnie
Mówili, że " To prawo świń pokazać nam, jak Żydzi taniec "
jedna z nich zaczęła klaskać
kolejny gwizdy wyrzeźbić piosenkę
moje ciało drga jak kurczak dziadka
świeże rzucił na szyję
Wciąż mogę ich wszystkich usłyszeć
ipotoku liny ciągnięcie tej wiązki
choć jeden jest odcięte ucho
chcieli pamiątki
rzeczy dla swoich dzieci mam
I prawie nie czujesz ostrze biorąc każdy palec
porclein lalek opłakiwać ich Papas
Jestem zakrztusił się jak o północy z nieba z jego gwiazdy zbyt
Niebo znów będzie biały
takich jak arkusze , że zrobił to dla mnie
Jehowa nie mnie uratować
nadzieję, że to zrobi lepiej od moich dzieci , bo nie mogę oddychać
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/trials/images/Hangings%20in%20the%20Plaszow%20camp.jpg
Writer's note: I chose to revise my poem "pitch black sunrise" as well as translate it to Polish to highlight the parallels in atrocities happening in the American south in the 1930s and concentration camps like Kraków-Płaszów.
Noted changes: da lil gal smiles - to - porcelain dolls cry for their papas
Jesus - to - Jehovah
Pictured above is Rubin Stacey, a man murdered July 19, 1935. He was murdered because he was falsely accused of trying to harm Marion Jones, a white woman. She later reported that he came to her door begging for food.
(Below) Prisoners hanging at Plaszow (1943) a Nazi labour and concentration camp built by the SS.
i danced to touch da ground
but they laughed at me
say, "Dats right boy show us how niggas dance"
one of 'em started on his guitar
another da fiddle
my body twitchin' like Sunday chicken
fresh snapped neck
i can still hear 'em all
and da creek of da rope pulling dat limb
though one's cut off my ear
they wanted souvenirs
things for they kids I reckon'
i barely feel da blade takin' each toe
da lil' gal smiles
im choked out like midnight from da sky
with it's stars too
sky will be white again
like da sheets that done dis to me
Jesus didn't save me
hope he does better by my chillin' cause
I can't breathe
http://www.blackyouthproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/RubinStacyLynching1.jpg
Tańczyłem dotknąć ziemi
ale oni śmiali się ze mnie
Mówili, że " To prawo świń pokazać nam, jak Żydzi taniec "
jedna z nich zaczęła klaskać
kolejny gwizdy wyrzeźbić piosenkę
moje ciało drga jak kurczak dziadka
świeże rzucił na szyję
Wciąż mogę ich wszystkich usłyszeć
ipotoku liny ciągnięcie tej wiązki
choć jeden jest odcięte ucho
chcieli pamiątki
rzeczy dla swoich dzieci mam
I prawie nie czujesz ostrze biorąc każdy palec
porclein lalek opłakiwać ich Papas
Jestem zakrztusił się jak o północy z nieba z jego gwiazdy zbyt
Niebo znów będzie biały
takich jak arkusze , że zrobił to dla mnie
Jehowa nie mnie uratować
nadzieję, że to zrobi lepiej od moich dzieci , bo nie mogę oddychać
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/trials/images/Hangings%20in%20the%20Plaszow%20camp.jpg
Writer's note: I chose to revise my poem "pitch black sunrise" as well as translate it to Polish to highlight the parallels in atrocities happening in the American south in the 1930s and concentration camps like Kraków-Płaszów.
Noted changes: da lil gal smiles - to - porcelain dolls cry for their papas
Jesus - to - Jehovah
Pictured above is Rubin Stacey, a man murdered July 19, 1935. He was murdered because he was falsely accused of trying to harm Marion Jones, a white woman. She later reported that he came to her door begging for food.
(Below) Prisoners hanging at Plaszow (1943) a Nazi labour and concentration camp built by the SS.
.:Holy Cost (What The LORD Allowed):.
http://8020.photos.jpgmag.com/3160788_249687_92eebe9cf7_l.jpg
Did Mama get bullied cause she weren’t his cow?
Did Daddy get pimped cause he weren’t his pal?
Did things run amuck that The LORD allowed?
Too many Devils; each of ‘em foul
Though before The Middle Passage allot went wild
Slavery’s Lawless Order but a single file
From ‘cane through to cotton to shuffling ‘cross tile
Kidnap Business?
It’s a whole ~nut~her~style
Folk as buy products;
They been bought for a while
Those bids on the grid kept folk in a pile
See for yourself; it ain’t been fine
Few billion heads and still doing time
Who remembers best? Remembers it foul
Each devilish beast gets to feast on the crowd
As Millennial Hucksters keep blasting it loud
So the holy cost; goes round & round
Quite the senseless how we still get down
How every other hue~man smiles with a frown
The cruelest cliché and it’s still around
While correction only matters when the
lost gets found.
...
photo: Soofia Says
Most people who were in the concentration camps were not POW's, they were Jews who were taken from their homes before the war began and exterminated. So the small numbers who survived had nothing to do with the war. POW's were military soldiers from the rest of the world who were held in prison camps that were not the same as concentration/extermination camps. So are you asking for poems about what it was like to be a soldier taken captive or a Jew who was gassed to death, independently of the war? There is no comparison between soldiers who had some protections through the Geneva Convention, including food provided by the Red Cross, and Jews who were stripped of every bit of their humanity and starved, beaten, tortured, raped and murdered before being thrown into mass graves.
As someone who was born 20 years after the war, I can't imagine what that was like. How does one imagine being turned into a lampshade after death?
JJ
As someone who was born 20 years after the war, I can't imagine what that was like. How does one imagine being turned into a lampshade after death?
JJ
