The woman with the suitcase - Sharon Bard

[Larry Robinson]

“Monday Monday, can’t trust that day” 

The woman with the suitcase


I.    BACK
Monday 10.2.17

wake up call 4:45 am
pack a snack water 
wear a warm jacket walk
hotel to the bus

hour and a half
ride through grasslands
light forest some towns
arrive at the gate
Auschwitz

. . .

I want to tell you
you are remembered
I don’t know you
I can’t find you among lists of names
grainy black and white photos

inside a window box
thousands of wire-rimmed glasses
piled willy-nilly in a heap
. . .

there is a magnitude
of this holocaust
which I cannot grasp
a level of atrocity
difficult to fathom
perhaps the most incredulous
of my impressions
is the utter organization
the mechanistic operation
of this killing factory

. . .

whether Dachau Theresienstadt
the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC
the Yad Vashem in Jerusalem
its thin metal arms and legs sticking into the air
each with their slanted interpretations
the genocide is unmistakable

here in Poland
in and around orderly buildings
I peer through barbed wire
see torn striped clothing
run my fingers
along with the brick wall backdrop
of a firing squad

gaze at photos of castrated inmates
hollow-cheeked children stare
wide-eyed into the unknown

. . .

how can I reach you
any one person unknown
to cradle your fear
your suffering
your disbelief
hold it as my own
which in some way it is

I am among visitors
from Japan Germany
other parts of Europe
young faces drinking in atrocities
I hear sobbing
wooden torsos walk through the museum walls
tour guides tell their stories
in multiple languages
so it should not be forgotten

for a moment I go
into that trance place
to honor you
even the perpetrators
so hardened off from compassion

on the bus back to Kraków
humbled for this life
I eat my sandwich
drink water
embarrassed at the wealth
of food and drink
transportation and warmth

I return to the hotel
learn of the massive shooting in Las Vegas
it is still Monday, October 2 2017
the largest massacre in US history
a drop in the bucket
of humans unable to get along
whether one person or 6 million
whether a Jew or a Pole
a white rocker at a concert
the sacrilege of taking life
has become the norm
our human race races
toward annihilation


I think of you again
the person thrown
into a mass grave
after the bullets the beatings
your skeleton shoveled into the furnace
after the gas
Auschwitz Aleppo Nagasaki

are our survivor skills
stronger than the systematic slaughtering 
engineered with the precision
of our developed frontal brain?

what happened?

I forgot to take a stone from the camp
to bring home as a remembrance
maybe just as well
the stones belong there
in sacred territory


II.  FORWARD
1991 to the present

resilience in the Baltics
independence from oppression
capitalism and new energy
NATO and the EU
there’s humor optimism
smart people extol virtues of victory
I wander north through Vilnius
my maternal grandfather was born here
then further north into Latvia
search for the hometown
of my paternal grandmother
its name not on a map
the territory occupied by many regimes
in a few short years
I can’t quite find the “old country” where
Grandma Becky left her home
as a young woman seeking
a new life taking
only her suitcase
with the requisite candlesticks



III.  BACK AND FORWARD
Monday 10.9.17

still in Riga with its
vitality and rich chocolate
awake to the ping
an email around 4 a.m.
my neighborhood evacuations
northern California on alert
safe not safe
national news disaster zone

up by day more touring more chocolate
restored buildings opulence of castles
collections pilfered through centuries
Tallinn Helsinki St. Petersburg
pride of history celebrating culture

by night hours in bed linking
to a newly charred past
through the 2.5 x 4 inch smart phone screen
streaming KSRO across the Atlantic

flames first responders
yelling “get out get out”
coverage of my neighborhood
one street over
chaos fear dread
then the aerial photos
it’s gone all of it
structures car computer
all records
memorabilia
the entire neighborhood
it’s gone all of it

a different kind of firing squad
not the systematic mechanized way
of the Nazi empire
but random capricious fire
ashes ashes
they all fell down
a tree stands amid its dead brothers
and the stones remain
sacred territory

I have returned like Dorothy from OZ
I have become what I sought to understand
homeless ungrounded fractured
moving to new territory
with only the clothes I brought with me

I have become the woman
with the suitcase
not grasping my
grandmother’s adventure
to get out
but now learning to navigate
my own where
I cannot go back in

	- Sharon Bard