I really should write about the psychology of racism this week, but the events of last week are still too painful. I will go back in history instead. Elie Wiesel, a man of conscience and action, died two weeks ago. In his honor, as well as that of some other public figures who courageously resisted the Nazi terror, I am going to post poetry that is in some ways connected to the Holocaust. The poems and the montages that were made to echo the poetry were part of a project Fugue that I undertook some years ago, in the earliest time of my montage making. The title referred to the point and counterpoint of words and images, but also the state that traumatized people find themselves in.

 

Amazed

 When the table is fragrant with bread

Strawberries and with crystal wine

            Turn your mind to the chamber of smoke-

            That smoke without a shape-

            The garments of the ghetto

            Not yet stripped away –

 And we sit around the fragrant table

Amazed that we are sitting here.

 

Rose Ausländer (translated by Eavan Boland)

 

Short biography of the poet, who never owned more than two suitcases in all her life:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0002_0_01614.html