House lights and street flickered and dimmed,
As a din of sirens flooded through the streets
Like ice cold blood rushing down from the hills.
Soon every light went black, and every sound went silent,
And every breath was held, and every hand was clenched.
Even the iron hands of the old town clock seemed too afraid to move.
Here time stood still, and the people of a city stood frozen.
But on this night instead of the hum of airplanes approaching
The coarse scratch of a wood match against a concrete wall broke the silence,
And the flickering face of a tired old man lit the night.
Time moved for him alone as he inhaled from his pipe, and dropped the match.
Pushing through the stillness he opened a door, and stepped into the street.
“I’m sick of your bloody goddamned war” he cursed.
Then he looked up, still puffing his tobacco,
And dared the sky to answer him.
Standing alone in the glow of his pipe,
He waited, unwavering,
For an answer to come.
As a din of sirens flooded through the streets
Like ice cold blood rushing down from the hills.
Soon every light went black, and every sound went silent,
And every breath was held, and every hand was clenched.
Even the iron hands of the old town clock seemed too afraid to move.
Here time stood still, and the people of a city stood frozen.
But on this night instead of the hum of airplanes approaching
The coarse scratch of a wood match against a concrete wall broke the silence,
And the flickering face of a tired old man lit the night.
Time moved for him alone as he inhaled from his pipe, and dropped the match.
Pushing through the stillness he opened a door, and stepped into the street.
“I’m sick of your bloody goddamned war” he cursed.
Then he looked up, still puffing his tobacco,
And dared the sky to answer him.
Standing alone in the glow of his pipe,
He waited, unwavering,
For an answer to come.
March 30, 1942
ReplyDeleteSS Lieutenant Adolph Ott: "I told my sub-kommando-leaders that Jews, after they are seized and do not belong to a partisan movement or sabotage organizaion, must be shot on the basis of the Fuehrer-Order."
~page 6,855 from original transcript of testimony from Adolph Ott, of one of Hitler's "hit men", during Nuremberg Trials
My childhood soccer coach, a pipe smoking Englishman, lived in London during the Blitz of 1940 – 41. Dozen’s of other British cities and towns were also bombed by Nazi Germany during that time. While what I wrote above is pure fiction, it was written with my coach (or perhaps his father) and one of those lesser remembered towns in mind.
ReplyDeletePam: That the types of military orders you sited above traveled up and down the chain of command without question, and that they were so readily carried out is unconscionable. Were it fiction it would be unbelievable, that it is fact is numbing.