‘Jerzy and Cyla’ and Other Holocaust Poetry by Peter Austin

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Jerzy and Cyla

Jerzy, a Polish teen in World War Two,
Arrested for suspected membership
Of the resistance, faced a one-way trip
To Auschwitz. There, where womenfolk were few,

Labouring in a storehouse used for grain
He witnessed the arrival of a crowd
Of girls. One, by extremity uncowed,
Appeared to wink at him…. These plucky twain

Schemed, for weeks, to exchange a daily phrase
And fell, of course, in love, which prompted him
To promise that, within an interim
Of no more than a smattering of days,

He’d win their freedom…. From a prison tailor
Came Nazi threads, from someone else a pass
Plus written sanction to escort the lass
To offsite work. Determined not to fail her,

He marched, one day, trussed-up Cyla behind,
Out of the gates…. For near two weeks they hid
By day and tramped through nighttime fields, their bid
For freedom hinging on his will to find,

Aided and hindered by the fitful moon,
An uncle’s house, where she at last took cover.
Murmuring ‘God-be-with-you!’ to her lover.
On a hot, airless morning late in June,

Pledging to come for her, when war was done,
He strode away to join the Partisans….
As was so often true of suchlike plans,
Before a life together could be won,

Each received tidings of the other’s death….
Fast forward forty years. In New York City,
Cyla was overtaken by self-pity,
After listening, with abated breath,

To a stirring radio docudrama
On Jerzy’s life who, far from being dead,
Lived in Poland, the founder, once, now head
Of a mechanics’ school. Her short-lived trauma

Swept away by the urge to reunite,
Chafing at the bit to be Poland-bound,
Within one exhilarant day she’d found
His number, been invited, booked a flight.

Over the next few otherworldly days,
They visited the Auschwitz cenotaph,
Reminisced, over many a carafe
Of wine, wrapped in a recollective haze,

But when she said, ‘Jerzy, come back with me,’
He sat in doubtful silence, then replied,
‘Cyla, our time’s gone by: I thought you’d died.’
Eyes looking downward, ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I see….’

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Poet’s Note: Cyla lost her whole family at Auschwitz. In 1985, Jerzy was declared a righteous gentile. She died in 2005, he in 2011.

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Helga

Helga Goebbels was Hitler’s favourite child,
Though she, in turn, from him would always shrink
(In the photograph, there’s a forehead kink,
A rigidness of jaw while he, beguiled,

Looks down on her who’s captive on his knee).
Her father, Josef, brought her no more pleasure—
Doling his presence out in meagre measure,
Bungling a leg-pull, awkward as can be.

In forty-five, on April twenty-second,
Joseph and Magda went down with their brood
To Hitler’s bunker. An internal feud
Caused by certainty that extinction beckoned

Soon drove her, in tears, from her children’s side
Leaving Hitler’s sekretär in control
Who (herself unchilded) took on her role
With an unassuming maternal pride.

She later said they were good as could be,
Telling Hitler, over a mug of hot
Chocolate, with childish earnestness, the plot
Of some book or other, remaining free

Of anxious puzzlement at his behaviour—
Unpredictable, shrill tirades about
The fickle generals, who chose to flout
The bestellungen of their would-be saviour!

Of only Helga did she note a triste,
Knowing expression in her big, brown eyes,
As if, beyond her twelve years, she was wise,
For whom all hope of happiness had ceased….

Hitler’s suicide being, by May first,
Just a day old, Joseph and Magda (she
Still from a nervous collapse far from free)
Enacted a scene several times rehearsed:

Their kids, told they were being vaccinated,
Were given morphine by a doctor friend
(Only Helga appeared to apprehend
The deception). Mother and doctor waited

Till sleep came (Goebbels had, by now, withdrawn);
Then, in between six pairs of lips, they eased
Cyanide pills and, by compunction seized,
Slunk silently away…. When came the dawn,

Russian soldiers, in the Chancellery grounds,
Came on Goebbels and Magda lying dead.
Descending to the bunker, soft of tread,
Listening in vain for the slightest sounds,

They discovered the children, blemish free,
Except for Helga. Her face was contused
And, from a rash of scratches, blood had oozed.
A fighter to the very end was she….

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Poet’s Note: Goebbels gave Magda cyanide and then shot her and himself. Bestellungen means orders.

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Peter Austin is a retired Professor of English who lives in Toronto with his younger two daughters.