KARTUZ-BEREZA 1993 YZKOR

Chapter VI - F

BY THE COMMON GRAVE

By Elizabeth Zilberstein (Leah Berkovitz)

This poem is dedicated to my parents, siblings, friends and to those who

were killed in the city of Kartuz Bereza.

Rigid, alone as two stones

We are next to the common grave

My tears sprinkle thousands of cranial bones

My child trembles of fear

Suddenly, I lose sense

I fall faint! Oh! Forgive me!

My dear, my dear, you cry, a wounded woman.

Why do you cry, mummy? I am afraid, I am afraid.

I don't understand the language you speak

Whom? Whom? Oh! Mother take me!

Why do you extend your hands and you ask

Here there is nobody, only trees and forest

Surrounded by piercing wires.

No! Here is the memory, the echo of the horror

Sacrificed, murdered with no justice

Here lie the Jews of Kartuz Bereza

All your friends and mine

Here from earth sprouts innocent blood

Caused by Nazi murderers and enemies

With fear, with lost values,

Covered with sand half alive

The world saw nothing, nor did they listen

As the earth breathed, trembled continually

Here, without pity, burning tears flowed

Here tortured in life

That murderers take in their conscience

G-d grants them the verdict that they deserve.

Why, mummy, tell me?

Tortured, murdered, covered!

I don't understand, I don't understand, mummy!

Why didn't they escape?

They drove them as innocent sheep

Hungry, without forces, defenseless

For anybody protected, alone, abandoned.

For the murderers they did not have any value

Nobody gave them a hand

Only pines were their cradle, and they murmured

In Brona Gura prayers and sounds were heard

The birds crying said "Kiddush"

The bloodstained sun hid at dusk,

I revive my feeling,

The birds murmur secrets

My child requests my hand

Mother, come, come, it already grows dark

Where do you want to go my boy?

Here in Kartuz Bereza there is nobody,

Only dead chimneys are there,

There are not houses, everything is grass.

Not the tree I sometime climbed

I hear mummy's voice ordering me to lower

The two doves are not fluttering

There are no children with brilliant Jewish eyes

With curl, frizzy hair,

With innocent look,

With genuine and delicate pity.

There is not home, neither belief,

Neither sign to follow

Disappeared are all beautiful looks

Only an eternal duel

A lament and a demand