Poem – Liberation (By Amy Hrynchuk)

Liberation

“We heard a loud voice repeating the same words
in English and in German…”1

May 25 1940, the first transport of thousands
were marched through those gates.
Gates that opened to what a select few
called the Final Solution.
But to those on the inside,
the Final Solution had yet to come.

Their Liberation
Their Freedom

Numbers painfully engraved
into their forearms.
No longer a person with a name
but only a number with no value to the few.

May 5 1943, the remaining weak and withered
were marched out of those gates.
Out of those gates that held in so much evil,
away from being just another number
and back into the world they were torn from.

Liberation had come
Freedom was theirs

“… ‘Hello, hello. You are free. We are British soldiers
and have come to liberate you.’ These words still
resound in my ears.”1

1 – Hadassah Rosensaft, inmate of Bergen-Belsen