Nothing List Revisited | Vern Fein

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If Nothing is Done

Can a human be a drop in the bucket of history,
a tiny ping in a vast cistern, but jump in anyway?

In WW II, Witold Pileki, officer 
in the Polish Underground,
hounded his commanders to allow
him to join Polish Jews sent to Auschwitz,
suspected something dreadful in that camp, 
left his wife and two small children.

Arm-inked #4859, he discovered the atrocities.
For three years, smuggled reports
in dirty laundry to the outside,
every basket a chance for capture.
He knew what the prison guards did to spies.

His reports: gas chambers, ovens 
to the Polish Underground.
Sent those atrocities to Americans and British.
No one believed.
No one would do such things!

We have a history of things done,
not a history of things not done.
How many would have been saved
if someone had listened?

Waited, arranged escapes for prisoners,
but nothing done. Frustrated,
faked typhus and escaped himself.
Spied against Russia till the Reds killed him.

We call so many heroes—tycoons, doctors,
baseball players, astronauts.
Is Witold still a hero
if nothing is done?

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My Personal List of Complaints

An African woman, raped at gunpoint,
one chance allowed her to flee,
made it to Brazil, trod 3,000 
miles to the US/Mexican border.

Pregnant now, an activist group
took her to Ohio to train
as a nurse assistant.

She left a ten year old son behind.
Group raised funds for his rescue
before he is killed or forced 
to train as a child soldier.

None.

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Cabaret Revisited

On the TV news, I watch the faces
of people wearing red hats.
When their hero appears,
they stand at the bar,
raise their beer glasses 
in praise. The bartender shrugs,
carefully tops the foam.

The scene reminds me 
of the iconic movie Cabaret,
when American brat Liza Minnelli
charmed the audience,
Joel Grey mastered his Liebchen
and mocked the Jewish gorilla.

Nazis terrorized Jews,
killed Frau Landauer’s pet dog,
left the bloody corpse,
rang the doorbell,
ran away like 
a crude Halloween trick.

As Count Maximilian hustled
Sally in the beer garden, a blond,
blue-eyed Hitler youth rose up,
sang a chilling patriotic song.
O, Fatherland, Fatherland  inspired
broken, poor and angry
Germans to stand, join
the rousing tune,
plant their hopes firmly
like a flag for der Fuhrer.

The Nazis viciously beat voters
at polls, their uniformed soldiers appear
in eerily greater numbers
filling the final bar scene.

Today, our own frustrated
rise to salute a different tyrant,
recover their pride,
hoping, once again,
to be saved.

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O, FATHERLAND, FATHERLAND
MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

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©2023 Vern Fein
All rights reserved

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