holocaust memorial

#3 Bronze and Stone, Fir and Ashes

A crumpled, upturned steamer trunk lies at the head of a black cobble path. Across the path is a toddler's shoe. I must squat to touch the strap of the trunk—no, it’s not leather, it’s bronze, like the shoe—and the smashed violin, mangled eyeglasses, and trampled prayer book--strewn along the cobbles that leads to a semicircular black granite wall.

A rock, under which is buried ashes from Chelmno, Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, Majdanek, and Auschwitz-Birkenau, anchors the right end of the wall.

Nearby stands a fir tree whose trunk I cannot span with outstretched arms. I am beyond weeping.

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