• News
  • Sport
  • TV
  • Radio
  • Education
  • TV Licences
  • Contact Us
  • SOUTH AFRICA
  • POLITICS
  • BUSINESS
  • SPORT
  • AFRICA
  • WORLD
  • FEATURES
  • OPINION
No Result
View All Result
1
Home Lifestyle

Son of Holocaust survivors confronts past with poetry

30 March 2021, 4:05 PM  |
Reuters Reuters |  @SABCNews
Menachem Rosensaft, an American Jew, stands before a monument to the victims of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany on October 26, 2014.

Menachem Rosensaft, an American Jew, stands before a monument to the victims of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany on October 26, 2014.

Image: Reuters

Menachem Rosensaft, an American Jew, stands before a monument to the victims of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany on October 26, 2014.

Menachem Rosensaft, the son of two Holocaust survivors who became an international lawyer specialising in genocide, has spent much of his life trying to reconcile the horrors of the past with his Jewish faith.

Rosensaft was born in 1948 in military barracks housing displaced persons, including survivors like his mother of the nearby Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp. His father survived five camps, including Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen.

Around 50 000 prisoners died at Bergen-Belsen, among them Anne Frank. When British forces freed the camp in 1945, they found some 60 000 survivors, but nearly 14 000 died within two months from disease and malnutrition.

Rosensaft, an American, has turned to poetry to reflect in verse not only on the Holocaust but also recent attempts at genocide, such as in Bosnia and Rwanda, and also tackles racism and intolerance.

“We know there are neo-Nazi forces, there are white supremacist forces in all parts of the world who, if allowed to, will perpetrate horrific acts, crimes against humanity, genocide against the other,” Rosensaft said in a video interview from his home in New Jersey.

“And ‘the other’ can be Jews, Roma, Muslims, it can be the immigrant and the LGBTQ community and we all have to be on guard.”

His book of verse, “Poems Born in Bergen-Belsen”, is being published in April by Kelsay Books to coincide with Yom Hashoah, the Jewish day of remembrance for Holocaust victims on April 9 and the anniversary of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen on April 15, 1945.

Rosensaft, who has visited Bergen-Belsen more than 25 times, wrestles in some of the 82 poems with what he called “ghosts of those who will not leave” places where they were killed.

“I try to figure out in my own head what has happened to them, what are they doing, what is going on with the landscape which they still inhabit because they don’t have a cemetery, they don’t have a graveyard,” he said. “Their graveyard is the sky.”

He writes of clean-shaven guards humming Mozart as they select who will live and who will die and then ending their shift “with a bored smile before dinner”.

Children inhabit many poems, inspired by his half-brother Benjamin, who at five-and-a-half years old was killed alongside his father and grandparents on arrival at Auschwitz in 1943.

As guards herded them to the gas chamber, Benjamin asked his mother if they were going to live or die. She did not answer. Benjamin would be 83 today.

When Rosensaft’s mother died in 1997, he realised that the only place Benjamin now lived was inside him.

“I see his face, I try to imagine his voice, I try to imagine his pain, his fear, his anguish and the one thing I know is that if I didn’t remember him he would disappear,” Rosensaft said.

He said he writes about children killed in the Holocaust to give them “a measure of immortality”.

A religiously committed Jew, Rosensaft’s relationship with God is troubled.

One poem, “Psalm 13, Post-Auschwitz,” starts by telling God:

“You hid Your face

ignored Your world

while flesh-fueled flames pierced the sky”

and ends telling him:

“it is too late.”

Share article
Tags: GenocideMenachem RosensaftHolocaustBergen-Belsen Nazi
Previous Post

Johannesburg Transport MMC urges commuters to wear masks, sanitise

Next Post

Western Cape will do whatever it takes to make the province safer for all: Fritz

Related Posts

Humpback whales on 
South Africa's picturesque east and west coast.

Plettenberg Bay celebrates World Whale Heritage status ahead of Tourism Month

5 September 2023, 1:51 PM
Humpback whales on 
South Africa's picturesque east and west coast.

South Africa’s east and west coasts witness annual whale migration from Antarctica

24 July 2023, 8:33 AM
Bokamoso Arts Institute at the World Choir Games in Korea.

Bokamoso Chorus greeted with clamour, cheer after being crowned World’s Best Choir

15 July 2023, 11:05 AM
Morning commute traffic streams past the Meta sign outside the headquarters of Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc in Mountain View, California, U.S. November 9, 2022.

Meta to launch Twitter-like app Threads

4 July 2023, 7:24 AM
Side view of a bottle with salt...

NRF research shows SA salt restriction legislation effective despite high intake at home

29 June 2023, 12:07 PM
French Musician FKJ.

Popular music festival In the City welcomes French Kiwi Juice to Mzansi

22 June 2023, 6:35 PM
Next Post
Fritz presented the Department of Community Safety's budget for the 2021/22 financial year.

Western Cape will do whatever it takes to make the province safer for all: Fritz

Most Viewed

  • 24hrs
  • Week
  • Month
  • UPDATE: Public warned not to go to W Cape beaches as another spring tide expected
  • Spring high tide leaves trail of destruction along Garden Route
  • Concern over exclusion of foreign nationals from Road Accident Fund
  • Cashless taxi service launched in Cape Town
  • “Motsoaledi’s ZEP leave for appeal has no prospects of success”
  • High waves and rough water conditions force beach closures in the Western Cape
  • Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi to rest in the town he built and nurtured
  • NSPCA files criminal case against Julius Malema for alleged animal cruelty
  • Snow, heavy rainfall expected in parts of KZN: SAWS
  • Cold-front sweeps across SA bringing snow and chilly temperatures
  • ANC building up in flames in Port St Johns
  • Gqeberha on high-alert following disruptive weather warnings
  • George Municipality urges public to heed weekend weather warnings
  • Joburg Water struggles to pump water, leading to supply disruptions: Sekwaila
  • ANC welcomes renaming of William Nicol to Winnie Mandela Drive

LATEST

[File Image]: The late IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi at the National Day of Reconciliation celebrations at the Ncome Museum in KwaZulu-Natal.
  • South Africa

‘Buthelezi’s spirit is rejoicing at Umkhosi Welembe’


Water running from a tap
  • South Africa

Pumping capacity at Rand Water restored after power failure


SAS Manthatisi
  • South Africa

Naval mariner Gillian Marlouw-Hector hails as brave warrior


[File Image] Coast Guard conduct a search and rescue mission.
  • South Africa

A search for a missing man continues at Camps Bay beach


  • Politics

LIVE | UDM 26th Anniversary Celebrations


[File Image]: Dripping taps can be seen in the above illustration.
  • South Africa

eThekwini Municipality to engage SAPS over possible water supply sabotage


Weather

  • About the SABC
  • Contact Us
  • Jobs
  • Advertise
  • Disclaimer
  • Site Map

SABC © 2023

No Result
View All Result
  • SOUTH AFRICA
  • POLITICS
  • BUSINESS
  • SPORT
  • AFRICA
  • WORLD
  • FEATURES
  • OPINION

© 2023

Previous Johannesburg Transport MMC urges commuters to wear masks, sanitise
Next Western Cape will do whatever it takes to make the province safer for all: Fritz