The names of the concentration and death camps...via Wikipedia
Stolen name replaced by number,
Savaged soul and broken heart.
Hell, a people to encumber.Blind eyes outside in darkness.
Dead souls dismissed the human face.
Stolen name replaced by numberRising from the ashes,
Pledging nevermore.
Hell, a people to encumberYad VaShem, the vault of memory,
Yad VaShem, the ground of tears
Stolen name replaced by numberShoah: families, children.
Here named, remembered, mourned
Hell, a people to encumberFaces pictured in the silence.
Tears cried forevermore.
Stolen name replaced by number
Hell, a people to encumberCopyright © 2011 Joann Nelander All rights reserved
(experimental Villanelle)
Into Stillness 
Really beautiful. When I was a young woman I met a number of people in St. Louis with numbers tattooed on their arms. Many carried a deep sadness within. I would have liked to talk with them about it, but refrained because I thought it would be unseemly. Although I was a war baby, for some reason I feel as if I went through WW II myself – perhaps because the effects of it were all around in my childhood.
Thank you, Barb. I went to Yad Vashem in 1994. It gave genocide a individual human face, so you cry and cry.
All I really remember of WWII are the ration books my mom had, the white margarine that came in plastic bags with a capsule of food coloring that had to be crushed to release the color, you then kneaded into the margarine by squeezing the bag. I remember VJ day, too.
Hard to believe the inhumanity.