| Noah Hoffenberg USA Devouring Auschvitz My great great uncle perished naught at Auschvitz, but died at the feast which followed. Nearby this cold concentrated encampment where he seemingly fasted. Surrounded by the other apparitions, force-fed holocaustical steins even Brueghel would not draught. Often unnoticed, the light on barbed wire coils, falling indifferently across fields brimming with wildflowers and Hebrew bones. Straking through dispassionate plumes from chimneys choked with chosen souls. Too comfortably set free by overzealous zyklon flame, like ashen Scriptural pages levitating into the formless arms of Adonai. My great great uncle perished naught at Auschvitz, however, and lived. Momentarily at least, to see the American saviors showing up slackly, fashionably late, for an exclusive dinner party at a devoured peopleıs expense. Healthily armed with rations of government cheese, canned unleavened bread and casks of vine-born fruit. Thus the Jews were free again, delivered and relocated to a lush German retreat. Where Nazis once bathed without fear beneath filigreed showerheads transmogrified from pilfered silver and gold fillings. And washed with soap manufactured efficiently from the choice fat of Abrahamıs flocks. Where they waltzed carelessly to Wagner across intricately woven rugs spun with silken Jewish locks. Where they languorously laid upon rich and taut leather couches, upholstered human skins. And there my ancestral boneracked uncle gorged himself on cheese, stuffed his cheeks with bread, and slovenly slobbered fermented fruits of the vine. Celebrating survival, momentarily at least, from the Reichıs deadly clean. Because no one ever told this eating machine, that when a famished abdomen is suddenly filled with foodstuffs, then digestive organs explode. Among perfectly pruned gardens and elutriate water- pure pools, our Jews shed filthy collaborative coatings, again rising from the ash of subjugation. Save my ascendant, who perished naught at Auschvitz. He, my great great uncle Nathan, after fully distending his skeletal belly with a banquet of abandon, died bursting near the cold camp which starved his stomach and soul.
İ Copyright, Noah Hoffenberg. |