Witness

I am in the Captain's Tent, listening to him,

"We are camped close to a concentration camp,

Buchenwald.

It was liberated yesterday.

We are asking for volunteers to go see it, so

that no one will be able to deny what happened there".

I get on the army truck to go.

These scenes are etched in my mind.

On the other side of a wire fence, standing silently,

are a few emaciated men in dirty clothes, staring at me.

In the barracks, I see many men with sunken faces

lying still,
in stacked bunks some watched me.

I go behind that building.

There -- in the open furnace are charred bones.

Leaning against the furnace, a stack of naked,

starved bodies.

Buchenwald, Germany 1945

Do not deny that it did happen

Do not deny that it can happen again

Do not deny that it is happening, now.

Don Ford, 2007