The Day of My Great Disaster.
(These are mere excerpts from a wonderous Poem, filled with loss, grief, the unknowing form of both which leaves Yitzhak lost in the wilderness of a disaster barely imaginable. Today we have difficulty coming to terms with what we now know, without ever trying to imagine what 6,000,000 Jews of Europe were yet to find out and couldn’t know.)
“..I break into the four bare walls of my dark home
and I wring my hands
Hannah is not here and my boys gone too!
Gone – there’s no trace of them
Oh my fine ones where have you been dragged?
The Germans! The Germans! The ugly sons of an ugly folk
Oh say where? They have dragged you by force!
Do you stand in a field? Are you in a forest?
Are you alive
I cannot stand not to know where you are
I cannot rest day or night
Something in me has finished.
Where are you going? Do tell me where.
Don’t go so fast. Zvi and I go with you
We’ve come too late, Oh too late
the train has gone off far, far, away.” Yitzhak Katzenelson.
January 14th. 1940 880 Jewish Prisoners of war force marched and over 600 are shot.
January 14th. 1942 Dutch Jewry are being prepared for ‘resettlement’.
“..I am happy to die amidst fighting Halutzim. We will take with us into our graves ..awareness that ..Jewish People will endure eternally.” Yitzhak Katzenelson.
January 14th. 8,000 Lomza Jews deported to Birkenau as the Casablanca Conference is held. Only Unconditional Surrender will be considered?
On Friday January 14th. 1944 “..Once we have won ..war then for all I care .. mincemeat can be made of Poles ..Ukrainians and all ..others who have run around here.” Hans Frank.
January 14th. 1945 600 Jews from Plaszow Camp are forced toward Birkenau as Plaszow is finally liquidated. Meanwhile, the Russians have crossed into East Prussia.
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