“There is rosemary, as a souvenir.”
—hamlet4.5

The suddenness surprised you, not
You didn’t know that day would come,
If you had to take a train heading east, you’d join
many have already been burned,
There is only smoke and ash under the gray Polish sky.

After all, you refused to run away.
You remained determined as you witnessed
the collective disaster of your people
and – in full measure of their despair –
happened The thinking heart of the barracks.

Then how surprised you suddenly are
finding God and beauty there – mysteries
emerging uninvited from the mud
and malevolence blooms
Spring wildflowers tangled in barbed wire?

Irises represent faith, bravery and wisdom.
and hope – virtues that you fully embody,
choosing existence over protection –
So when I find your cenotaph equipped with beds
passing by passers-by with stones and flowers,

I will leave behind an iris and some mother of pearl…
for this elegance and clarity of vision—
Because it’s on the postcard you threw from the train
dragging your family towards extinction,
you wrote calmly We left the camp singing.

(Esther “Etty” Hillesum, born 1914, Middleburg, Netherlands;
Interned in 1942–1943, Westerbork Transit Camp; killed in 1943
Auschwitz, Nazi-occupied Poland.)