Rhyming

Rhyming  adds rhytm, beauty,  solemnity to the text. I like it, and whenever possible, use it. There are rhyming dictionaries available in many languages,  and that helps  give the 'masses'  access to some basic form of rhyming 'poetry.'

Usually, it is the sad, tragic events in life that trigger the need to 'color' the text in rhymes-  at least in my case. I wrote about the loss of my dear ones in rhymed verses.

I composed  the speech for my Mom's funeral (delivered in hebrew to the participants) in three languages: romanian, hebrew, english - and used rhyming. 

Here' are some examples of rhymed little poems ( the english part only;  naturally, the romanian and hebrew parts are more elaborate, as I have a better knowledge  of these languages) :

Siblings

Mina-Ruhale, my elder sis.  I wish I could hug her and kiss.

I've got no photo of her, never had.  In Transnistria she starved to death.

Just try to imagine the tragic event:

A small girl in the concentration camp  

No food, no water, no air,  only disease.  

She closes her eyes, her tiny soul for Heaven leaves.

So, I never felt what's like

To have a sister by my side

Sharing things, dreaming together,

 making plans, helping each other.

Herman  (Hersh) my beloved brother

Tall, handsome, a real charmer

His virtuous playing the violin

Raised pleasure bumps on the skin

His great, catchy sense of humor

Became  a widely persistent rumor.

Suddenly, taken away from me

July 98, in Budapest, Hungary.

Hershole, my older brother

Was a Holocaust child survivor

Should have been given more years

To wipe out suffering and tears.

The Season Connection

In Spring,  Mom got ill and fragile.

It sure looked an ominous sign

In Summer, when all outside was bright

My mother and my brother Hersh, died.

In Autumn, with the sky cloudy and grey

Father David and nephew Shai, passed away

In Winter, in the cold, gloomy weather

We had to part from uncle Chaim forever.

TEREZIN

It was a clear, almost sunny day in late October; I had a thick, woolen sweater on me, and yet I felt chills all over my body. My brain was busy translating sights into people and happenings, my camera 'behaved' as if it highly resented the idea of taking pictures.

Visiting a place which used to serve as ghetto, prison and concentration camp was not an enjoyable experience .

Terezin (Teresienstadt) , a peaceful little town one hour north of Prague. has been turned by the Nazis into a ghetto for the jews of Czechia and adjacent countries during World War Two.

Things are somehow dispersed here, confusing the first time visitor. There's the main site (the city Ghetto) and a small fortress ( Gestapo political prison) - some twenty minutes walk apart from each other. Both places have museums and exhibitions , cemeteries, yards, barracks, torture cells, bunks, gallows - all testimony to the attrocities that have been comitted here by the Nazis.

'Arbeit Macht Frei ' sign ( upon the inner gate)

inhuman cell

Outside of the small fortress (Mala Pevnost - built in the 18 century on the edge of the town of Terezin) , near the entrance, there's the National Cemetery , dedicated to the victims of Terezin prison and concentration camp. Buried here are people exhumated from the mass graves within the fortress, urns containing ashes from the Crematorium of the Ghetto, and also remains of the dead from the Ghetto. In all, 10,000 victims (jews and other nationalities - and there 's a Cross and a David's Shield on the spot).

entrance to the small fortress


national cemetery

I believe , a visiti to places like Terezin (Czech Republic) , Dachau (Germany), Auschwitz (Poland) gives one a new perspective to the concepts of Life and Death; it teaches a lot about Human Nature , about Evil and Suffering. After visiting places like the above mentioned , one's view of the world ceases to be romantic , and becomes more lucid and realistic.

Dachau

Memorial

I had in my right pocket a slip of paper with the name and address of a nice german woman from Dachau whom I had met on a tour in Greece. I thought I would perhaps go look for her after visiting the infamous concentration camp. Well, I didn't. I couldn't. I was in no mood to walk around or talk to any inhabitant of the city. I wanted to leave the place that had witnessed unimaginable horrors, as quick as possible.

[I am reminded of my visit to Dachau by the recent news regarding the theft of the iron inscription at the entrance of Auschwitz death camp: 'Arbeit macht frei' (Work sets you free or Work brings freedom).
The Dachau camp had a similar iron inscription at its entrance] .

The concentration camp was built by prisoners on the grounds of an abandoned gun powder factory outside the city in 1933. It was the first concentration camp and it served as a model for the other Nazi camps that followed. It had two main parts: barracks and a crematorium . Almost 30,000 prisoners are believed to have died in the camp and its subcamps.

No way people living in Dachau at that time didn't hear or see anything about the atrocities (slavery work, tortures, medical experiments, inhumane living conditions, extermination) that went on at the camp located east of their clean, peaceful town. More likely they ignored both the rumours and the visible facts.

Nowadays, europeans and germans in particular, claim in private conversations, that they feel they are being punished for what they 've done to the jews. Foreigners from third world countries, they say, have 'invaded' Europe, destroy its culture, traditions, landscapes - and the locals feel helpless about it.

Helpless? Well, they''ll probably come up with something (evil), they'll invent something nobody has ever thought of (like gas chambers), they'll find a (final) solution. History, I'm afraid, has the tendency of repeating itself.