A Mantra for Auschwitz

Beauty will save the World— Dostoyevsky

Share/Save/Bookmark

A Mantra for Auschwitz
by nilofar-shidmehr
19-Sep-2012
 

The beauty of irrelevance

of me with shaved head

and wearing a Kippah

making my passage as a Jew

through “Arbeit Macht Frei.”


The beauty of the erased

years from 1939 to 1945, in a poster

at the entrance where we line up to be grouped,

marked in red with the same brilliance

as my nail polish.


The beauty of the broken

handle of a suitcase belonging

to a survivor, that stays back

in the camp which still overflows

with new arrivals like me every day.


The beauty of the distended

white skirt of our guide

who stuffs our sad hunger with statistics,

leaning against the bluster of a brick building

with Goebbels’ words at its entrance.


The beauty of fading

stripes on the shirts of prisoners in the photographs lined along

the hall way, similar to the strips on my shirt,

which feels as long and stretched as the prayer

shawls hung in the first room we cram into.


The beauty of the dark

inside of a large glass container

in the second building,

holding dense human ash like mud,

against which a boy rubs his little white face.


The beauty of the smudged

words on a letter in the third building,

never sent, but read numerous times

by strangers like me, who try so hard

to decipher “love” scribbled in Yiddish.


The beauty of an absent

stare, pinned on a pile

of eyeglasses in the fourth building,

which resembles a woman with lush black hair

and piercing eyes.


The beauty of a toothless

comb, holding to brown bent teeth

of other combs around it on which has fallen

the shadow of a woman’s hair.


The beauty of a few fallen

crutches, which together,

make a track that leads my steps

to a mound of worn-out shoes

as tall as me.


The beauty of the threadbare

fabric of a little girl clothing in the fifth building,

which recalls the barbed wire fabric of the camp,

with small roses and a butterfly

that still resist being snipped and unwinged.


The beauty of the ruthlessness

of a smooth and blazing blue sky

gnawing my eyes as we exit

the building and head towards the courtyard

to visit the grainy and grey “Wall of Death.”

The beauty of emptiness

hidden within cement walls

of solitary cells in the basement where we go next,

and where we are not allowed to capture

in snapshots to take home with us.


The beauty of abrasive

ovens in the last building, now cold

as the bulging blue eyes of a doll

with broken torso, whom I say goodbye to

before heading to Birkenau.


The beauty of dryness

of the still-green blades

of July’s grass under our stump

in the vastness of Birkenau, advancing

along the incessant rail tracks.


The beauty of the startled

sunlight which scurries in

like mice towards the bunk beds

where hay is lying today,

as we enter the barracks.


The beauty of a cluttered

pit of concrete, rubble, and dust

with deep and twisted iron roots,

going down to the heart of the earth

in the place of sky-high columns of smoke.


The beauty of my brittle

nails under the red polish scratching barbed wire,

that matches the brittleness

of a heart made by stones

on a symbolic grave for grave-less folks.


The beauty of me, an Iranian atheist,

who, following an Islamic tradition,

while reading the Koranic verse,

knocks on the grave with one of the stones

to present Jewish souls as witnesses before Allah.


The beauty of my irrelevancy—

my shaved head, my Kippah,

my stripped shirt, my brittle nails,

my brilliantly red nail polish;

the beauty of irrelevance

of a so called Muslim’s Exodus .


Nilofar Shidmehr
Auschwitz-Birkenau
July 22, 2012

Share/Save/Bookmark

more from nilofar-shidmehr
 
nilofar

Care and Love /Relevancy and Dis-functionality

by nilofar on





Dear Mehrban,

Thanks for directing me to another of your
insightful writings. I loved the last one: your personal story of relating to
Siavoosh Kasrai's Vatan. And I love this one.

Something about "Baroon Baroone" has also
strikes me as odd. But I could not exactly put my finger on it until this very
moment. I completely agree with you on the relative absence of expressions of
care coexisting with profuse examples of expression of love. One can describe
this as ironic or paradoxical, but I think you have chosen the right adjective
for this situation: dis-functional. I have also wondered how a person can love
someone who he does not deeply care about. This seems so unreal to me!

I still continue wishing that Persian men would
care about Persian women more than they say they love them! Of course care
comes with responsibility and much more that "love" does not
necessarily aspires to. Here, by saying Persian men and Persian women, I do not
mean to generalize or do injustice to men. I am mainly talking about a culture
rather than individuals who carry out that culture via their performances. And
by care, I mean being responsive so as to respect women and give them real social
status as being more than mothers, sisters, and wives, and to allow them be as
present and active in cultural and political scene as men are.
Treating someone
with care means acknowledging that she is real, alive, and relevant--that she
exists or can exist independently. So again, the discussion on care in the
context of gender relationship in Iranian society somehow relates to the
relevancy of women in the community.

May our wishes for our culture come true. wishing
that it becomes less dysfunctional so more real, our wishes, yours and mine and
those of others who do not completely fit into the box of Persian culture.

Nilofar



Normal
0




false
false
false

EN-CA
X-NONE
AR-SA

























DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="267">
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>


















UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>

UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>

UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>

UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>



/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}


Mehrban

Care!!! Funny you should mention care!

by Mehrban on


nilofar

Relevancy

by nilofar on

First, Dear Vildmose,

Thanks for you comment. The saying of Simone De Beauvoir as a subtext of your comment is definitely very powerful. Its power is in its relevancy to our human predicament or condition, also indicated by another of my favorite female thinkers Hannah Ardent. 

Many Regards.

And, Dear Mehrban,

Thanks for giving my poetry revlevancy through your insigtful and caring reading. If not care and insight combine together as "Mehrbani", what else can creates sense and relevancy to our existence as openness towards the other?

I am always inspired by your words and what is beyond them.

 

Many Regards,

Nilofar Shidmehr

 

 

 


Mehrban

The beauty of the relevance of your poem

by Mehrban on

Dear Nilofar, so many thoughts rush into mind that I may sound fragmentory or incomplete but here I go....

Orhaan Pamuk often talks about a certain provenciality that he felt living in Istanbul, a feeling that what was important was taking place elsewher namely in the West.  I only bring this up as a phenomenon with no value judgement.  In your work there is a pressing desire to be relevant, you have read well and learned a lot your work shows it.   

Some of the passages here are brilliant (poetically)

"of a smooth and blazing blue sky


gnawing (at) my eyes as we exit"

Also the use of the imagery of knocking with a stone at a grave site (which to me is one of our most moving and powerful traditions), in this context is brilliant to take the Jewish victims witness to an "irrelevant" but very real Iranian "exodus" which was the topic of one of your past blogs.  Iran of IR as a prison and ergo the idea of escape and exodus.  

I could go on about color and texture too but I stop here.

Thank you Nilofar, your work is relevant and in many ways makes us relevant.  I wish there could be an intelligent and lively discourse about contemporary Iranian poetry and literature, your poems certainly provide potent material for such a dialogue.

I am always impressed by a certain intellectual gusto implied in your work.   


vildemose

 Powerful.

by vildemose on

 Powerful. Thanks.

 

All Oppression Creates a State of War--Simone De Beauvoir


FACEBOOK