The Red Diary: a cycle of poems inspired by the Diary of Anne Frank (part one of four)

The Red Diary

A cycle of narrative poems inspired by the diary of Anne Frank
by Margaret Gunning

Part one of four

                                                            To the memory of Anne Frank

I remember my affliction and my wandering,

the bitterness and the gall.

I well remember them,

and my soul is downcast within me.

Yet this I call to mind

and therefore I have hope:

Because of the Lord’s great love we are

not consumed,

for his compassions never fail.

They are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

                                                                    - Lamentations 3: 19 - 23

                                                        INTRODUCTION

      Very early on a summer morning, I had a long and strange dream about Anne Frank.

     This came after what seemed like an eternity of dryness and lack of inspiration in my work, when the ground was so parched the flakes of earth curled under the sun.  In the dream, I was incarcerated in a Nazi prison camp.  I was very earnestly trying to put together a book of my own, a sort of diary, only it was being compiled according to a rigid set of specifications, many of which made no sense.  I was (as it were) only following orders.

     In this dream, I had a certain awareness that I would soon be executed, though I was not sure what I had done to deserve it.  This caused me more resignation than fear.  Then I was looking through the original of Anne Frank’s diary, only the pages were made of a very sheer, fragile, almost iridescent glass, and were full of photographs and ghostly, glowing images.  There were no words.  I said to someone beside me (perhaps a fellow prisoner), “This life means something, no matter how short.  It stands for something, and it will be remembered.  It is a lesson.”

     Then I was actually standing in the presence of Anne Frank, small and dark and intense, exactly as she appeared in her famous photographs.  Without speaking the words aloud, I asked her, “You know how this ends, don’t you?”  She knew, and I knew that she knew, even though she did not say a word.

     There was an extraordinary feeling of touching her essence, as if there were no real border between us, even though in this dream I was not myself, but a soldier, a man.  The rest of the symbolism and puzzles of this dream remain a mystery, some riddle my psyche would rather I not resolve.

      At about the same time, something unexpected happened: I began to see a lot of newspaper and magazine articles about Anne Frank, as the world marked the 60^th anniversary of the discovery of her hiding place in Amsterdam.  She would have been 75 years old at the time I was writing, probably a mother and a grandmother, and it is impossible for me to believe that her remarkable writing would have stopped in her youth.  This sense of anniversary and of what might have been made the writing experience especially poignant for me.

     The strange vision I experienced on that summer morning was so vivid it affected me almost like an electric shock, forcing me to take a look at the extremes of human valour, humble self-revelation, sacrifice, art. . . all the things I admire and crave, yet fear that I lack.   My immediate reaction was feeling that I was not worthy to write about this, that I had no claim on Anne Frank or anything she stood for; I am not a Jew, I don’t remember the war, and at the time of the dream, I had not read Anne’s diary for some thirty-five years, so my memories were hazy at best.

     But something compelling was set in motion by this dream, and I did begin to write, even in the face of my doubt and fear.  The dream also compelled me to re-read the diary, this time in the “definitive edition” of 1995, which includes a wealth of material not present in the carefully edited version I had read as a girl.  It seems that the world is now ready to encounter a more human Anne, sometimes angry and critical (especially towards her mother), and always true to her name in her frankness about sexuality, spirituality and all the abiding mysteries of life.

     Daily I would read a section of the diary, no more than twenty pages at a time, as more than that would have been overwhelming.   Daily I struggled to respond in poetry to this astonishing document, so well written that it would be the envy of any mature professional writer.  At the same time, I was reading biographical material from other sources to fill in the background.  I also discovered the superb Oscar-winning documentary film Anne Frank Remembered, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in this compelling subject.

     Through writing this long poem, I began to re-experience traumatic events in my own early life, and I had a decision to make as to whether to include them in the work.  In the final analysis, I felt I had little choice, as the material kept presenting itself, more and more insistently.  It was a creative risk I had to take, in spite of my continued struggle with an unresolveable dilemma: how dare I claim to have suffered in the face of the horrendous abyss of the Holocaust? 

     Though I did not completely lay this internal battle to rest, I did continue with my poetic response to Anne’s diary until it was completed to the best of my ability. Though much of the original dream remains a mystery to me, I believe it was a gift of sorts, as well as a creative spur. I was being asked, even invited, to take a deeper look at something powerful, something ultimate, perhaps even transformative.  In the face of my own doubt and fear, I had to follow this bright red thread wherever it would lead me.

  

                                                       DREAM OF ANNE FRANK

Dream

when I opened your book of pages

a glass butterfly with manifold wings

I knew I had no pages

except according to directions

that made no sense:  I was only following orders!

but you were there, a slip of a girl

a slice of pure meaning

pure illumination

and sacrifice

and I wondered how I dared to look – knew

I was not worthy to look,

but had to look – could not avert my eyes,

as you could not avert your

steady brown gaze, those eyes that saw

to the core of so many things.

I was some sort of broken soldier

imprisoned,

except I was on the wrong side,

always in the wrong. . .  and commanded

to make a book that had no meaning,

according to illogic’s rules.

And I obeyed.

I always followed orders,

so that my book had no meaning

and no sense.

Your book shone like

gold teeth, like eyeglasses

in a heap,

frail hoarded visions,

all the images

of the millions

who can no longer see.

How could you know at fourteen

what we lose when we age, the clarity

that saw through surface grumpiness,

bad smells, bad temper

to shining selves in a war for integrity.

Shut away, you blossomed.

Impossible.  Impossible that you could

bring forth such clarity, such an account:

you were only telling what you saw,

but you said everything, held nothing back.

Such hard truth.  Such audacity.

Destroyed:  yes, snuffed out

by other humans; will my mind ever

comprehend the reeling contradiction?

Is this why I despise myself?

What sort of Nazi am I, that tramples the

butterfly,

that pulls out gold teeth by the roots?

 

 Forgiveness

 Is forgiveness impossible

in being on the wrong side?

Can I shut up the yammering Hitler in my

head?

My dreams are grimy newsreels

of pompous oppression

and silently shrieking crowds

that fall into lockstep,

the fresh-faced, wholesome youth

who gaze up smiling

at the face of their saviour.

Anne floats above all.  Freed.

Not held to this earth,

this place of pain.

But we needed her.  We needed her to stay.

Her vacancy is like the cavity of a

pulled tooth.

We will miss her forever.

My heart slowly turns

inside-out

and I am eviscerated,

my body an empty cavity

through which a raw wind blows.

I am not a Jew

 But I never knew her.

She was never mine.

What claim do I have on her?

I am not a Jew.

On the wrong side.  The other.

Not the one who saved.

Not the one who redeemed.

I would not hide a Jew.

I would not risk that shadow in my house.

My heart skulked, scurried like rats.

My neighbor left a loaf of bread on the doorstep

daily until the famine was over.

I kept the bread for myself:  shooting Jewish dogs

in the head.

My soul writhes.

There was no other.

I was the Jew.But I could not see.

 Anne

You appeared to me

quite early in the morning,

and for all the world

it was as if I was looking at you

straight and clear

as you were in life,

small and dark and neat,

graceful as a young tree,

with a charming smile and a dimple,

lively eyes

and a brain like chain-lightning.

Such small frail shoulders to support

so many millions,

the fragments of hope,

just enough,

just enough to carry on.

For these words, these words,

I will live another day,

I will not end this,

twist though my heart might

in anguish,

all meaning flown away.

One small pure flame of integrity

will sustain my life, will carry me through

the long

and impossible night.

 Forced bloom

 You said so much

about life in captivity.

You said so much about proximity

forced by circumstance

(cruel, unusual)

and forces of history

meted out in matchsticks, daily bread

and bickering over the least of things.

Bread, and soldiers

and marching steps

and radio broadcasts that crackled with static

and import

you must have known where you were

in history

even as young as you were,

that someone had to do it,

to bear witness to the dailiness, the strain,

the tiny flashes

of inextinguishable joy.

What gave you such steadiness?  I quail before you.

My head spins in astonishment.

Life had not taught you that you couldn’t;

and so you could, and did.

Barely in your teens, your gift was full-blown;

you knew you were doing the work.

And what is more, you had the valour

and the persistence

to keep getting up in the morning

to face all those people

who got on your nerves

who barely comprehended you

(even if they loved you),

who could not tell you anything,

offer any hope, any sense of a way,

a way back to life in full.

The overpowering tectonic forces of history

molded you, matured you

before your time,

forced like a rare orchid

into rich bloom

in a stifling corner.

A certain fearlessness

sustained you,

though the grownups must have been

paralyzed with anxiety,

barely able to sleep or work or make love

in the shadow of unspeakable fear.

Was it your youth, your spirit,

was your courage so much greater,

or did your daily words, your task,

put the heart in you

while the others sank

in anguish and despair?           

                         

                                                                  THE DIARY 

It is a holy document.

One would expect a grand binding

of leather and gold,

or parchment paper with gilt edges,

but instead it’s a jolly little thing,

gaily covered in red-and-green plaid

with a lock and key for privacy.

An ordinary girl’s diary, a birthday

present, a potential, a book of pages,

and for you, with such a gift,

a companion.

Kitty, you called it, and it looks like a Kitty

in a bright stylish coat,

fun and flirtatious,

tossing her dark hair, light and careless of heart.

And the early entries

are all about bicycle rides,

and boys,

and testing out your power

as a woman,

though even in this time of freedom,

you felt the menace closing in.

Jews must wear a yellow star,

must badge themselves

with this symbol so strangely beautiful,

two triangles, a double trine of fire,

a requirement, a signal, a delineation,

a branding of otherness,

of look, look, I am a Jew, I cannot hide

what I am,

I must wear it all the time on my breast

right next to my heart

so the enemy can watch me,

can keep his eyes on me,

and use my own symbol of power

and covenant

against me.

Jews must wear a yellow star,

Jews cannot go out at night,

Jews cannot visit with Christians,

Jews must not go to the market

in the day time. . .

and on and on, the restrictions,

the confinements,

closing in like a hand.

Inside this bright plaid coat

fear lurks,

death lurks

yet walks with light step, defiant.

Like klezmer music,

a light spirit is ultimate resistance,

a refusal to be bowed.

And so you sat and wrote:  Dear Kitty.

And this girlish, kittenish companion

caught all your thoughts, received your days.

She sat and listened.

She was fascinated with you.

You focused down, you became absorbed,

and you wrote what you saw.

MEGHAN MARKLE FOR PRESIDENT???

Thoughts on Meghan Markle and her coming political coup. This was a comment I left after a video about the royals and MM in particular, and as it evolved I felt it deserved a longer life here.

ferociousgumby 15 minutes ago (edited)

At this moment the United States is in the worst crisis since WWII, but unlike WWII when they had superb leadership, there is NO leadership and things are in utter chaos. The Democrats are not strong enough now to instill trust in the people. Like newly-hatched ducklings, the majority of people will gladly toddle along behind anything that even remotely resembles "leadership". This has happened before in history, but I leave you to guess when and where. 

I have often heard that in Chinese, the word "crisis" can also be translated as "opportunity". Meghan is about to step into a historically-unprecedented vacuum, a Meghan-sized hole in American politics which she may well fill, absurd as it seems. A sketchy background and having NO idea what you're talking about is obviously no deterrent to being President. Ronald Reagan, the "great communicator", gave speeches with no meaningful content whatsoever and inspired huge loyalty because he came across well on TV. 

Narcissism is hardly a drawback, but rather a huge asset. The free world is now being led by a lunatic, and Meghan can at least speak in full sentences, no matter what the lack of relevant content. The States is just crazy enough to welcome her with open arms, because 90% of the voters HAVEN'T been following her exploits. Everything in her background will appeal to the left: she is bi-racial, "young", a woman, a "royal", and an American who can represent Black Lives Matter AND "girl power" at the same time. She is ticking every possible box, and everything is poised and ready for a devastating coup.

Lebensborn

 

Infants being processed on a Nazi baby farm.

When good men do nothing

Flying egg: the car from space

Schlörwagen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Schlörwagen in 1939

Schlörwagen from the front

The Schlörwagen (nicknamed "Egg" or "Pillbug") was a prototype aerodynamic rear-engine passenger vehicle developed by Karl Schlör (1911–1997) and presented to the public in 1939.

Schlör, an engineer for Krauss Maffei of Munich, proposed an ultra-low drag coefficient body as early as 1936. Under Schlör's supervision at the AVA (an Aerodynamic testing institute in Göttingen) a model was built. Subsequent wind tunnel tests yielded a drag coefficient of only 0.113, incredible then and still extremely impressive today. For a functioning model, a Mercedes-Benz 170H chassis, one of their few rear-engine designs, was used. The aluminum body was built by the Ludewig Brothers of Essen. Subsequent tests of the motorized model showed a slightly higher but still impressive drag coefficient of 0.186.  A year later it was unveiled to the public at the 1939 Berlin Auto Show. The project was shelved with the onset of World War II and mass production was never realized. In 1942, the prototype was fitted with a captured soviet propeller engine. The whereabouts of the sole functioning model remain unknown.

BLOGGER'S LAMENT. Would that they had found this thing! I have no idea how they would ever fit this little pillbug, which looks as if you could pick it up with one hand, with a "captured Soviet propeller engine", or what happened to it after that. Did they end up with a flying egg/pillbug/two-door Schlor, or just one big splat?

This was the only photo I found which presumably illustrates the hybrid, but as usual there is no information with it.

I also found a couple of photos of grey men in grey hats looking at the (mostly-grey) car. Things were pretty grey, back then.

There really was a Chef Boyardee

This has got to be one of my dumbest animations ever, but here it is anyway.  For God's sake, I could only find three pictures! Then they had to be worked on a lot to get them to match up. Pretend he is smacking his lips, or blowing on something to cool it off.

Like everyone else, I was surprised to discover there really was a Chef Boyardee, a renowned chef who owned popular Italian restaurants. This went on very nicely until World War II, when the nation desperately needed army rations. Voila - canned spaghetti! This had never been tried before, and it is said that soldiers went about with can openers slung around their necks to partake of cold, congealed ravioli and other gourmet delights.

This brought about a change in the product, of course, making it blander and more uniform. It was sturdy food that could provide quick calories and hold up in the trenches. But in the 1950s, when the good chef first appeared on TV, army-ration-style food was still very much "in". All those horrific Spam/gelatined table scraps/creamed everything recipes prove it. America still very much remembered the war as they entered that other war, the cold one.

And the cold rations went over well. I fed my kids Chef Boyardee ravioli (which my toddler son called "dabioti") because they ate it, and liked it, and it was easy. I guess they survived. I even ate it myself, but the last time I tried it, it tasted like nothing. I was shocked.

I find it interesting that, while he and the announcer both correctly pronounce his name "Boi-AR-di", it soon evolved into the supposedly-more-manageable "Boy-ar-DEE". I will never forget those pizza mixes, which for years and years was the only pizza we ever consumed: thin cardboard crust, non-zippy red sauce, and a little can of powder that passed for cheese.

Muslims are the Jews of 2015

If you've followed this blog at all, you'll see that I'm almost apolitical. I stick to popular culture, strange social trends, personal passions (including my favorite, obsolete technology), and random bizarre-iana, with a few swipes at the Writer's Life (such as it is). But something happened today that sickened me so much, I had to write about it. A person I thought I knew well posted the most bigoted video I have ever seen. A woman was ranting in a continual stream without taking a breath, blaming "the Muslims" for all the evils in the world. The point seemed to be that she came from a Muslim background herself, so she knew the score and couldn't be wrong. 

When confronted with the jaw-dropping bigotry of this kind of thing, people always backpedal rapidly, saying oh, no, no, we didn't mean ALL Muslims! Then why did they not say "Muslim extremists" or "Muslim terrorists"? No, all the way through this video which everyone praised so highly, she referred to "the" Muslims, a name that reminds me, most sickeningly, of "the" Jews during World War II. Below are my journal reflections on this gut-sinking thing, followed by my response to the video on Facebook, which will no doubt provoke strenuous denial that they did anything wrong. Jeez, can't we say anything at all any more without people being oversensitive?  It will be either that, or "wake up, Margaret, they're taking over the world and you'd better accept it as fact." 

If I cut loose from social media, and I am VERY close to it now, this video will be the last chop.

I was ambushed today by the most hateful thing I have ever seen on Facebook, something posted by a childhood friend of mine whom I knew to be formerly in favour of civil rights. It was a news video about “the Muslims” with a woman ranting and ranting that they represented pure evil in the world and were destroying everything in their path. It appeared with the caption “This brave woman is risking her life to finally tell it like it is!" 

The idea that most Muslims are peaceable is steadily eroding. They are the Jews of our time, and not enough people see it. I could not believe a former friend, an intelligent woman with formerly liberal views, did this horrible thing – it made my guts squirm.  Nobody seems to realize that that little word "the" changes everything, because it refers to the entire group. This changes speech into rhetoric and a diverse group of people into a target. Then they had a ranting and raging man in a turban on the video who just foamed at the mouth about the Koran, making Islam look even more innately violent and destructive, but they could just as easily have shown a white supremacist or a member of the KKK. But in the unenlightened public eye, the knee-jerk response will be, "oh, look at that. One of those Muslims."

As I watched all this, I had an awful, gut-sinking sense of a chess game being played on an ever-more-tilting board. A huge number of people are massing against a select group, and it may end the civilized world because it is Third Reich syndrome. All we need now is a Hitler. People hate Muslims because the media is feeding them lies that they are responsible for every atrocity that happens, and that hatred is only massing and burgeoning. The fact this was posted by a childhood friend just stunned me. She obviously believes this stuff if she’s putting it out there and praising this woman as some kind of heroine. I was more appalled than I have been in years. FB is completely poisoned for me now. 

This is a response to a video which I felt was misleading. Every day now I see news items which no longer differentiate between the Muslim community and "the Muslims" (terrorists) who are behind all the evil in the world. Living in a city which has a very large Muslim community, this gets me in the gut. Quotes from the Koran are pulled out of context to demonstrate how primitive "they" are in what "they" believe. I try to deal with this issue below.

Using this terminology ("the" Muslims, which she used repeatedly) paints them all with the same brush, refers to the entire group and does not differentiate between the peaceful and the murderous. I am being repeatedly shot down for saying this (and it scares me), but the vast majority of Muslims I know personally are peaceable and completely appalled by what is going on. We may not approve of their customs, just as I certainly do not approve of much of Christianity, but the majority are not promoting or performing acts of terrorism and do not support these acts at all. I don't see Muslim families hiding in the bushes in the streets of Vancouver with bombs. 

Saying "the Muslims" are responsible for terrorism and the evil in the world is distorting the truth, just as if we saw the KKK/white supremacists as representing Christianity. As for ideology, let me pull out a few choice Bible quotes: "an eye for an eye", "slaves, obey your masters," "women, submit to your husbands," "women should keep quiet", "I come to bring not peace but a sword" (Jesus). Most Christians do not adhere to these beliefs, but still call themselves Christian. 

The belief that Muslim extremists are behind all the atrocities is not-so-slowly being eroded as Western culture begins to equate "the Muslims" with "terrorists", and "converting to Islam" as synonymous with "joining the terrorists". It is human nature to scapegoat and find a group of people to hate and blame, and this is a formidable force which can unite a society in hatred. This has happened before in history, with disastrous results. The fact this is a woman from inside the culture does not automatically make what she says true. Finally, if a Muslim family moved in next door to you, would you be afraid? Would you try to make friends with them? Would you let your children mix with them? Marry one of them? Ask yourself.

(Post-blog exhaustion. I finally gave up on working on/editing and re-editing this because it was bloody exhausting, and I don't think anyone will be swayed to believe the word "the" has any significance at all. They just don't see it. Talk about nit-picking! Political correctness! But it still makes my blood run cold, and I don't understand why so many people don't seem to know what I'm talking about. Though that's nothing new.)

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The Diary of Anne Frank: a cycle of narrative poems (part four of four)

The Red Diary

A cycle of narrative poems inspired by the diary of Anne Frank 

by Margaret Gunning

Part four of four

To the memory of Anne Frank

Happy

Tears:  sometimes

it is too much for you,

you fold up and sob,

trying to keep it quiet,

contained:  but your grief will split you

if you don’t give it room,

so you draw up your knees

and convulse silently

in the stale attic room

in the dark.

Yet, you write of being happy;

I believe it.

In the midst of all,

in raw raging hell,

in boredom, in despair, in fury with the adults,

in all this, a shy happiness blooms inside,

delicate as white petals,

protected,

held inside your heart

like a sweet secret:

you are happy as only the doomed can be happy,

this day sufficient,

this moment of precious silence,

this sense of God stealing near. . .

warm against your skin,

tender presence, stirring,

life itself,

insistent,

miraculous,

conquering all

by a single intake of breath:

the act of breathing,

beating,

being.

 Not my diary

Then:  a break-in, burglars rattling

suspiciously downstairs, police on the trail,

and a frozen night of terror,

eight hearts pounding. . . all of you

lying on the floor, afraid to move,

a wastepaper basket for a toilet,

and whispers:  hide the radio!

What’s the use?  If they find us,

we’ll have no need for it.

Hide the diary.

No!  burn it –

not my diary!

(“If my diary goes,

I go too!”)

What shall we say to the Gestapo?

Impossible conversations.

Rehearsing for doom.

A raw smell of sweat, of feces.

One night spent crammed together

in a stinking airless room,

bodies churning with fright.

When the threat passes,

suddenly you’re older, years older,

forced through another grinder,

and you write, like one who has lived through

a thousand years of torment,

“We’re Jews in chains,

chained to one spot,

without any rights,

but with a thousand obligations.”

But like the psalmist

who howls in loneliness and anguish,

you still say, “God has never

deserted our people.”

In the midst of all,

you stand; you stand.

“If God lets me live,” you declare

with the faith of a thousand generations,

“I’ll make my voice heard.”

 Doubt

And yet.

In the next breath, the doubt:

you wonder if anyone will ever want

to look at “this drivel”:  your rapt, fascinating

account

turns to dust before your eyes.

Now I know you are a writer,

twisting, impaled on doubt

that never ends,

pressing on in the face of it,

surely the ultimate task.

 Peter

They call it knutscherei:

stolen kisses, closeness, body heat

your heart swaying,

Father worrying, yes, worrying

that you could get pregnant,

all that time spent there in the attic, alone together –

and then what would you do;

but fear and shyness

keep you from venturing further

than a chaste kiss, a caress,

yet this glancing touch

makes your legs turn to water,

you want to surrender,

to press for more,

but jump back from the might of it:

forces unknown,

hungers

stirred, but never satisfied,

wild forces

repressed,

mysteries never probed –

Peter, whom you never would have

given the time of day

if your world had been normal,

now becomes your prince,

your heart’s companion,

your only.

Each day (an interlude)

We are given, each day

only enough to get through;

never more.

We may call this

manna

in the wilderness of our own lives,

with nothing left to gather

at the end of the day,

and only trust

to help us open our eyes again,

face the howling uncertainty

once more.

If the world should end today,

if this should be our last, our final day,

we would not know it;

the unknowing

is a blessing of sorts,

the thing that helped me go to school each day,

keep the secret confined

within my small body,

only revealed after decades

of numbness

and oblivion,

a strange, raw flower

blooming like the spread of blood

in water,

a blossom of despair, of damage

swelling purple like a contusion,

a truth,

surging upward like a germinating seed,

mysterious,

inexorable –

but because true, then unstoppable,

even a gift of sorts,

a reanimating of that which had died,

a return to a wholeness I had never known,

a birth into completeness.

I was given back my life;

yours was taken.

The loss is a slap,

or worse, an amputation –

I want you back,

these words are not enough,

this account is not enough,

we need you here –

I know how the story ends

and hate the ending,

hate this waste, this waste

magnified six million times

until it is beyond

what I can even imagine.

 Afraid

“I’m afraid of myself,” you write,

afraid of what wells up inside you:

you speak of your period,

red hope spreading

from your place of secrets;

you know there is a connection

between this bright bloom

and your passion in the attic:

Father looks concerned, he wants to protect you,

knowing your loneliness,

your fear:  you write,

always in hope,

“I feel liberation drawing near.”

You write:  “Why should I despair?”
There are only three months left

until they take you:  but you do not know that,

or you could not live.

 Stop

Stop the train:  the end of this

I cannot bear;

stop –

 The Annex

Twenty-five months;

a protected time,

suffocating,

hard:  but nothing to what will come;

the cattle car, the uniform

the shouted orders,

Auschwitz:  but never tell me,

for I cannot bear it –

not my Anne,

not this one, but: yes, they all, all –

 Final passage

Sixty years ago, this week. . .

a weariness,

a sense of being overwhelmed,

yet I must read on,

finish it, my heart split

with the effort,

yet how dare I grieve,

how dare I – so far from this,

so safe –

In the midst of all,

not knowing how close you are

to the end of the story,

you study the classics:  “Orpheus, Jason

and Hercules

all waiting to be untangled,

since their various deeds are running

crisscross through my mind

like multicoloured threads in a dress.”

You clothe yourself with knowledge,

still and focused

in your attic room,

deadly calm,

your studies a form of sanity,

of steering –

You dream of a book of your own,

The Secret Annex,

perhaps a novel

based on your time of hiding.

The chestnut tree

outside your window

bursts into bloom, it is May,

the world insists on continuing,

your father receives

three eggs for his birthday,

and you write,

“unless you’re a Nazi,

you don’t know what’s going to happen to you

from one day to the next.”

You see the abyss between

daily pleasure

and perpetual terror:  “that gap,

that enormous gap,

is always there.”

Sometimes you hope for the end,

no matter how terrible,

just to resolve the grinding anxiety;

you wait,

you wait,

the radio your hope,

D-Day, the invasion,

Churchill’s voice,

and everyone glancing at each other,

wondering how to feel,

what to allow,

heads bent, intent,

everyone sweating

in the airless room:  when, when –

and somewhere, in all this

your girlhood has been lost,

stolen by fear

and crowding,

stolen forever:  my heart pounds,

I feel sick,

I want to run,

I want to put the book away,

but it insists, it insists,

listen to me, it says across the gap

of sixty years,

listen to how it was with us,

to how it was –

 Good at heart

Then comes the statement the world remembers,

“I still believe,

in spite of everything,

that people are truly good at heart.”

And a full stop:

ANNE’S DIARY ENDS HERE.

But not the story; not the story.

One day in August, the door bursts open,

and it is over.

Requiem

Mr. Van Daan:  gassed to death in Auschwitz.

Mrs. Van Daan:  dead; date and place, unknown.

Peter:  died in Mauthausen (Austria), three days before liberation.

Dussel:  died in Neuengamme.

Mother:  died from starvation in Auschwitz-Birkenau,

all her bread hoarded for her girls.

The sisters:  taken to Bergen-Belsen

where they sickened and died,

their young bodies

dumped in a mass grave.

A few weeks later the troops arrived.

 The survivor

Pim lived on,

lived to be immensely old,

lived with his memories,

the diary his legacy, his hope;

he married a woman

who came through Auschwitz,

and perhaps

they did not need to talk,

perhaps

the number on the forearm

was enough.

 Miep

An old, old woman is left,

the keeper of the diary,

the one who snatched it from oblivion

in a moment of prescience.

I realize, with shock

that she is still alive,

though nearing a hundred.

Is it difficult to die

when you hold so many secrets?

When Miep speaks,

the world listens.

What she has waited to say

is just as true,

sixty years on.

“Most of humanity

did not even want to know what was happening.”

She speaks simply.

Slowly.

Choosing her words.

No wasting.

An ordinary woman

in an impossible time,

she did what was necessary,

daily,

daily,

for more than two years.

When she speaks, the connection is completed,

the little girl in the closet,

cowering,

the woman afraid to admit

she has suffered

because so many millions suffered more;

it all comes clear in a single, simple statement:

“Anne stands for the absolute innocence

of all victims.”

 To come through

Absolute innocence:

my eyes are opened.

Take away the differences; there are none.

This is what it is to be human:  to be held captive

against your will,

to be persecuted,

hunted down,

violated,

vulnerable; this is what it is

to endure,

to hold on

to integrity,

to hope,

to stay human

through atrocity,

to remain merciful when punished without mercy,

to “be”, to carry on,

to remarry,

to have another child,

to tell the story

over and over

in simple words, direct and compelling,

leaving out no detail

for it all counts toward glory,

to open our eyes

each day

in an ultimate act of courage

to the same light,

yes, the same light she knew

through the merest crack

in the blackout curtain,

hope spearing through the shade,

illuminating:

and this is the lesson,

daily,

daily,

pledged beyond reason

to a future that may never be,

for this is all we have,

and all we require:

the need to breathe

in an airless room,

the need to imagine and plan

beyond a suffocating confinement,

the need to see past the day of despair,

to live beyond,

to pick up the bleeding threads

and make a life,

to lift up our hands

in supplication

and praise

and gratitude

for what is left,

for the valour

and the honour

and the stubbornness

and the grace

to come through.