LL-L "Remembrance" 2008.01.27 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L  -  27 January 2008 - Volume 01
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From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at WORLDONLINE.NL>
Subject: LL-L "Remembrance" 2008.01.26 (08) [E]

Yes. As a child and teenager I read and heard a lot about the Holocaust in
WW II, and it left a very deep impression in my mind.
On me the genocides during the recent or still ungoing civil wars in
African countries such as Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan (Darfur) and Congo
have left a no less deep impression. And what about the injustice in Iraq
and Palestine?
So let's remember yesterday but also today!
Ingmar

Reinhard schreef:

January 27 is Holocaust Memorial Day. So please spare a few appropriate
thoughts and remember that unfortunately genocidal activities are not yet
things of the past.

Below please find one of Waltrud Bruhn's Low Saxon poems on the subject,
followed by my translation.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
 Subject: Remembrance

Thanks, dear Ingmar.

I hear you and am with you, brother.

You're younger than I. I still have vivid memories of being quite young (*very,
very* young, as in little-child-young) and being shown concentration camp
liberation footage so horrendous that even these days it would not be
allowed to be shown on US TV. Yes, it was necessary for Germans (and others)
to be confronted with it (by order of the British occupation administration
in my region), but no age distinctions were made at the time. Not long ago,
I compared notes with a long-time friend of my, also called Ron and roughly
my age, who remembers being shown the very same footage at the same time in
the basement of his *shul* (synagogue) somewhere in Colorado. Did it impact
the rest of my life? You bet it did! For the better, despite trauma and
pain, despite having been treated as scum and being asked to leave shops and
restaurants while traveling in neighboring countries alone as a
post-war-born teenager. It taught me much, most importantly compassion and
not seeing people in categories but as individuals. And it taught me about
the value of the high road when I was taken in by a socialist Danish family
that had greatly suffered under German occupation and in Israel by Auschwitz
survivors. Dealing with it rather than burying it was a type of liberation
for me. I've learned that, although it may sound trite to people, simply
loving people and reaching out to them with compassion *is* the way.
Learning about them is the key, and one of the keys to their minds and
hearts is studying their languages, a great antidote to the key culprit:
fear of the unknown.

Below is one of my older Low Saxon poems (respelled and with translation)
which I dedicated to Agathe Lasch (though did not write about her alone),
the pioneer and *grande dame* of Middle Saxon language research who had been
stripped of her academic positions and eventually perished in a gas chamber
train car *en route* to Theresienstadt.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

***
af
un to
in de still
tippt se mi an
joon lesten sekunnen
ehr ieskolde krall
as dat unvörstellbare
jachens wissheit was
as jo joon tokumst angluup
uut verfeerde ogenhölen
in bleke, giftsugene trünen
as allens klipp un klaar daarstünn
in verrenkte läden ehr krickel-krackel
mank'n himp-hamp up de kulen ehr boddens
de ogenblick twüschen begriepen un niks
as dat schrickwiersümmen to'n truerwies' wöör
to 'n tranenlose klaag'
œver joon minschenwöörd'
joon minschengloov'
un joon minschendrööm
ehr verdarven
un œver all
de leddigen
wöörd' to joon
gedenken

***

now
and then
in the still
it touches me
the icy-cold claw
of your last seconds
when the unimaginable
suddenly was certainty
when your future stared at you
out of terrified eye sockets
in pallid, poison-sucking grimaces
when everything was clearly written there
in the scribbly scrawl of contorted limbs
amid the jumble on the bottoms of the pits
the moment between realization and nothingness
when the hum of electric fences turned into a lament
into a tearless wail
over the destruction
of your human dignity
your human faith and
your human dreams
and over all the
empty words
in your
memory
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