thehighlanderspoems

holókauston

Around that table picture the scene
Self appointed leaders if you know what I mean

What were the topics on the agenda that day

The Jewish race is about to pay

Who gave the right for this decision that's made
Who has the right to cleanse and degrade
To decide who lived, to decide who dies
Another chapter and I still wonder why

They came in the day they came in the night
Women and children pulled out of sight
Herded aboard like cattle and sheep
Many a family awoke from their sleep

Dazed and confused as they are taken away
Where will they be at the end of the day
From their warm houses and their warm beds
What must be going through their heads

As they travel through days and nights
Up ahead they see lots of lights
Now departing trucks, boarding  trains
Their faces scared under this strain

Asking questions from family and others

Generations, sisters and brothers
Why are we here, where are we going
Windowless carriages with no way of knowing

We come to a stop, soldiers aplenty
Towers and wire topped with sentries
What can this place be they have taken us to
As we head to large gates as they shuffle us through

Families separated, herded in file
Women and children, not one did smile
Taken to rooms where our heads are shaved
Is this the way humans behaved

Clothes discarded as we enter the shower
No signs of water no signs of power
Doors slammed as we're all crammed in
History will recall this evil of sins

As we stand in the dark chanting our Jewish faith
We can hear their voices, can't see their faces 
Noises above, when do the showers start

The event has begun that tells us humans apart

Questions and sighs, as the walled vents show daylight
Some thing is falling then their slammed tight
A strange aroma starts to fill the air
As all around are screams of despair

Twenty minutes have passed and the quietness is rife
Two thousand people, two thousand lives
Pellets called HCN, Hydrogen Cyanide
Contribute to this Genocide


After the quiet we all have to go
Dragged and carted by the Sonderkommando
To be dumped in pits covered by lime
A race to dispose by it's human slime

Auschwitz, Buchenwald & Dachau slaughtered
Many a son, many a daughter
Experiments on children women and men
Some aged 90, many under 10

Its 1945, their end was near, how many alive would reappear
As Russians, British and US troops
Chased the Hun to their German roots
Each camp reached showed it's sordid past
Where millions of me, were in extermination gassed

In Auschwitz to this present day
Birds don't fly, no animals play
The reminder is all for there to see
Those terrible days what happened to me

It's 1948, our Nation is born
From histories past, Jewish populations torn
To all who survived I wish you well
And our new born world, called Israel

 

He Did What He Could
 
Over a thousand souls sheltered from the hell
By a German industrialist whom he saved would tell
From forced labour camps bought under the Third Reich's nose
To work in his factories as their war effort grows
 
Diamonds and cash bribed Amon Goeth
A barbaric camp leader who spoke with deaths froth
The saved ones worked manufacturing grenades and shells
Not one could be fired as history did tell
 
It's now the end of the war with over a thousand saved
From their persecuted era where they were imprisoned, enslaved
Amon Goeth was hanged, aged 37
The souls of the lost look down now from Heaven
 
This saviour of Jews, died aged 66
For he wanted to save more through his financial tricks
At Israels Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations
Where they place rocks still,
Oskar Schindler rests, in Jewish Heaven
 
 
  My tribute to an amazing man, whose determination
to save as many Jews as he possibly could, and he did.

 

Silent Train
 
In the middle of nowhere amidst this barren terrain
Silent scatter of suitcases surrounds an empty train
Passengers gone, quietness aplenty
Signs of life none no visible sentries
 
Carriage after carriage as far as the eye can see
For the thousands of occupants where can they be
As we approach the engine buildings appear
Smoking chimneys, some figures become clear
 
Stripe suited and shaved, emaciated to thin
What world have we walked into, seeing skeletal skins
The sweet smell of the acrid smoke
Stinging our eyes, catching our throats
 
As we enter the buildings that are emitting the smoke
The stench and the sight leaves us sickly in choke
Bodies charred, broken, naked unjust
In this war that we have lived, inhumane, disgust
 
Night turns to day as we witness it clear
To do this to humans, what did the Germans fear
Later that day on the news we've heard
For we haven't witnessed the first, there's been further abuse
 
We reach Berlin my platoon and I
For the past five years of fighting, we still wonder why


 

Sobibor Sleeps

How many out there
How many are left
That policed these horrors
That left families reft.
 
Survivors, their ancestors
News to tell
Demjanjuk the accessory
Last of your camps Hell.
 
His liberty gone, free since 1952
Deportation granted, his health astrew
Tell that to the thousands, he never bothered to save
As the rains fall, tears on their graves.
 
No matter their age, condition their in
The damage is done, they pay for their sin
At 89 his life's end is near
But freedom he had, not the thousands he speared.
 
The trial and conviction will take its course
Will this evil show remorse
Sentence given as the Judge speaks
Sobibor weeps, now Sobibor Sleeps 

 

Novi Sad, Saddened
 
Another chapter
In our human race
4,211 murdered
In this Novi Sad place
 
Serb, Jewish
And Roma ethnicity
Gunned down
In massacre simplicity
 
In the Danube River
It's icy depths
Over four thousand souls
Dumped and left
 
The initiators arrested
To face their crimes
Escaped to Germany
For their freedom time
 
After the war
Located and arrested
Executed, dead
Whilst the massacred rested
 
It's just another chapter
In our human race
How many more
Until we start to loose face
 
 
In memory of the " Massacred at Novi Sad and other locations from
                          January 21st to the 23rd - 1942
 
 

Hiroshima -Nagasaki

On that day in Aug 1945
Bomber over the city that's very much alive
Nervous crew, cloudy day
Pilots instructions, open bomb bay

The words above as the pilot said
What happens next the world dreads
The catch releases as Little Boy goes
Are they really enemies, are they really foes

As he lands without a sound
As he plummets into Japanese ground
As he ignites his awesome power
As he sprays his atomic shower

An eternity clears in hours I hear
No city which once was here
Where are the people, no where near
In Oppenheimer, do I detect a tear

If that's the worst the USA tells
Nagasaki is next as the death toll swells
Lo and behold that day has come
The second city is indeed gunned down

This Uranium gem as the Yanks declared
Our troops at war will all be spared
Not to think of the Japanese folks
Who in Atomic ruin, their lives soaked

Buildings gone where they once were
Populations vaporised without a care
This mushroom shape will shadow ever
This day in history will never sever

The following day as I look around
A bustling city which has no sound
I stand here bleeding, burns and sores
Skin dripping, family torn

All around me broken burning shapes
Trying to make sense of what this all makes
What could have created such destruction as this
On this city where yesterday was bliss

As I limp down my street, deathly imaged spree
Shadows of neighbours I will never see
Silhouetted in shape in many forms
Is this my world now its not the norm

Weeks have passed as I start to feel ill
Once I was ten now I feel nil
Bodily sores, lacerations and boils
My human life now entering its toil

As I look to the sky some birds still soar
Those lovely doves I will see no more
As my life fades, my eyes gently close
Should anyone receive those blows

Now I'm gone as I look down, once a city now no more a town
Once were dots all running around
Most are gone blown from our ground
Where mediation was never met, discussions were never said
Two cities many dead


    ( Lyrics by Queen )
    Teo torriatte konomama iko
    Aisuruhito yo
    Shizukana yoi nir, Hikario tomoshi
    Itoshiki oshieo idaki

    Let us cling together as the years go by
    Oh my love, my love
    In the quiet of the night
    Let our candle always burn
    Let us never lose the lessons we have learned

Are our lessons learnt, time will tell
Berlin Wall, barriers fell
Is it a start or a start to come
Is this human race always on the run
We need to look, and look around
No more we hear that whistling sound
Its seems to be a more silent kill
Typical human, in its typical will.

 

Damned by the Bomb

Lancaster formations
One two and three
To attack the dams
Off Industrial Germany
 
Targets to hit
In the Ruhr valley
Power providers
Canal alley
 
RAF Scampton
Near Lincoln they load
This barrelled bomb
Bounced to explode
 
Runway lined
Engines roar
Crews ready
Tally Ho!
 
Flying low to reach their quest
Allied pilots at their best
Flak explodes all around
As the Germans hear our engine sounds
 
Targets reached as they circle round
To gauge their height as it bounces sound
Steady steady let her go
As it hits the water
First bounce slow
 
Second bounce, momentum gain
These dams, not to be the same
Clinical strike as it hits the wall
Sinks, explodes
Crumbling walls
 
Minutes pass
As the crew's look back
To observe the severity of the attack
Nearly out of sight, as the walls finally gave
Cascades of water in thunderous rage
 
The Möhne and Eder breached as planned
Missions accomplished on these German dams
German war effort, hampered for a spell
As for the rest of the conflict
Time would tell


617 Squadron The Flight Home

Brave men brought together
To fly the bombers
To hamper the power
 
Enlistment their will
To serve the free
All humble men
As history will see
 
Hearts shaking
On this white knuckle ride
Hero's them all
Side by side
 
Outbound flights
Planes lost
Their families and friends
Count the cost
 
Target reached
Heavy flak
How many of them
Will make it back
 
They turn for home
Chased by the Hun
Machine guns ripping
Flesh so young
 
Wounded they slump
Bullet ridden
Bloodied bodies
Sodden
 
The coast of England up ahead
Welcomes the live
And will remember the dead
 
Distant engines
The airfield hears
Crippled planes
Grow near and near
 
Families gather as they fly over
Did their loved ones
Pass the cliffs of Dover
 
Ambulance, tenders
Race to the scene
Pieces of man
Their life no longer a dream
 
Carried in care
Blanketed shroud
Dads and sons
Did their country proud
 
The airmen who walked out
Turned and looked to the sky
This mission by men
As they wonder why
 
Pain and suffering
For the right to be free
As the future has thanked
As we look back and see
 
 
Dedicated to all who served, to allow us to write and read.
We can fire our words, but they will never make us bleed.


My Fallen Brother

White marble stones
Stand proud in the sun
To remember my colleagues
The heroic fallen ones
 
Many a battle
Many a campaign
Some did return
For some never the same
 
On the green grass I stand
Blue sky above
The souls of my comrade's
Like peaceful sitting doves
 
The name on this stone
Reminds me of the day
My best friend and brother
Was taken away

 
An offensive was launched
Brothers at war
Bunker to take
At the top of a tor
 
Smoke screen exhausts the view to the hill
As we wind our way through
Zipping bullets, blood spill
Noises of lead as they rip through the flesh
As we hit the barbed wire
Now a scarlet stained mesh
 
Objective in sight as we approach our aim
As I hear the groan of the injured
Many dead, many maimed
 
Grenade pin pulled
Bunker window we lob
Hands sweating
How many lives will we rob
Explosion flash with shouts of pain
As the smoke lifts on this bloody terrain
 
We enter the Bunker
To witness our task
The enemy lie distorted
Faces grimace, death mask
 
I turn to my brother to signal it's safe
As a shot rings out in this theatre place
He stands still for a moment
Eyes glazing and cold
The death of my sibling
At 19 years old


As I open my eyes and turn to my son
I see what I have as he holds my grandson
Family values, love and a bond
As I remember my brother
Of whom I was so fond
 
I proudly walk past, saluting as I go
The white stones standing proud
Peaceful doves in a row
I find my self fortunate to stand here and tell
To talk of my brother, and the fallen as well
 
 

Operation Dynamo

Exodus on a massive scale
1940 under assail
Three hundred thousand
Fathers and sons
Dunkirk evacuation
From the Hun
 
Armada
Not seen for hundreds of years
To save our hero's, relay their fears
1500 ships of many sorts
Arrived on mass
Naval escort
 
British and French
Beached and battered
Quest to save Europe
Defeated and shattered
 
Queues of troops
Line the sands
Await their fate
Strands of man
 
Luftwaffe scream over head
Drop their cargo, inevitable dead
Explosions softened, by the Dunkirk sands
Saved so many of the waiting strands
 
Hail the sky, the RAF
Contained the hun from machine gun strafe
Their dedication in foggy skies
The ultimate saving of many lives
 
The aftermath of this unbelievable task
And the dedication of this incredible ask
Organisation on the grandest scale
For in the future we will not fail
To free Europe, another Armada will sail


 
" Dedicated to the many men liberated from the beaches at Dunkirk,
              who returned to do, what only hero's can do "
            *,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,*  

 

Misfortunes of War & Beyond no More

The price we pay
For these countries of ours
Battlefield loss
Coffined towers
 
Daughters and sons
Gunned down
Patriotic souls
Perish, under Nature's sun
 
Terrorist war, i cant understand
To fight each other, my thoughts bland
Muslim, Sunni or Shiite Bro's
Severe grudge, Suicide blows
 
No faith, can comprehend
The sender of this degenerate send
Martyr's picked, soon forgotten
As the world denounces, faiths so rotten 
 
West Bank, Basra, Baghdad too
Exhibits in this modern Zoo
Kill your neighbour, slay a friend
On the news, images send
 
Close to home these cowards strike
Maim and kill, their consience wiped
Off to where they are supposed to go
Forever land, where nothing flows
 
If faith exists on this magic land
Would what you see, be in its plan
To do what we do, and think it's best
All faiths would be, under arrest
 
If we are all under the one
So many wrongs have humans brung
For this Highlander to understand
Who is indeed, in charge of this land
 
Before you answer, please observe
To actually who, do humans serve
So many idols, are they human made
Whose do we walk, on earths esplanade
 
The answer is there for all to know
Open minds, allow the flow
It may not be, what you think it's been
It may be around you, everyday seen
 
Nature, nature in your might
Observe this planet, in your sight
Render wrongs, display whats true
Remind your tribes, what they should do
 
Way back then, explosion new
The cycle of me and you
If we don't understand what we are here for
Misfortunes of War & Beyond no More

 

Hero's return in Armada Mass

June 6th 1944
An Armada masses at Europe's door
Five sector landings, 160,000 troops
On the following beaches, our hero's would swoop
Utah, Omaha, Juno, Sword and Gold
Allow me to write, as my story unfolds
 
We, 50th Northumbrian Infantry
To repatriate Europe's lost countries
The Devonshire, Hampshire regiments but two
The Allied might in this incredible feud
 
Beach landing storm, between Le Hamel - Ver sur Mer 
 
Sectors Item, Jig and King
Is where the 79th Armoured would sing
 
Beachhead established, Mulberry harbour plan
Reaching Bayeux, cut the road to Caen
East we will go, meet with the Canadian troops
Juno Beach they landed in their infantry groups
 
King sector assault, casualties high
Our tanks now landed, their shells fly
Enemy positions pounded
Men of both die
 
Jig sector assault, Le Hamel fell
Village by village, only time will tell
Creully and Crepon reached and taken    
Forsaken
 
Item sector, commando strong
Harbour to take, enemy thrawn
Important target, supplies to land
Eventual demise of this German stand
 
From this landing, our masses advanced
Through deadened lands, i never glanced
To absorb the sights that i witnessed there  
To look ahead, no stop no stare
 
As i sit at home and close my eyes
Not knowing whether to despise
Being in the middle of carnage hell
Our Hero's fell, but I'm here to tell
 
 
   " Dedicated to Stanley Elton Hollis - the one and only recipient
of the Victoria Cross on D-Day June 6th 1944, but they are all hero's "
  

That Night in Caen " June 1944 "
 
In the centre of Caen
On this war torn night
Spandau's strafing
All the Canadian soldiers in sight
 
Sergeant Baker
Is hit in the thigh
A flesh wound its not
He's in bleeding die
 
As he cries out in pain
The bullets rain down
Zipping and pinging
In this beautiful French town
 
His head down
As he awaits his fate
His collar is grabbed
Now in dragging state
 
His colleague and friend
Has risked his life
To save another
From mans war torn strife
 
As they scramble away
Upon them comes
A Tiger tank
Over the wall she runs
 
To a shell hole they dive
As a rocket strikes
Through it's armoured steel
In precision bite
 
Internal explosion
Screams of death
Tank crew gone
In battle reft
 
The town now liberated
In population applause
As we sit in the square
Wondering of wars just cause
 
 
" Dedicated to all the Canadian and British soldiers
    who liberated Caen from June to August 1944 "
  
 

Stalingrad Scope

Stalingrad 1942
City surrounded
Bloodied human zoo  
 
Shattered buildings
Architecture ruin
Walls of peace
Blasted and strewn
 
In the rubble he crawls
Suited white
Background blend
Silent
 
For hours he lies
Corpse still
Eyes in focus
Await his kill
 
German Half-track
Up ahead
On the commanders head
 
Range set
Wind adjust
Breathe in
Shots a must
 
Trigger squeezed
Echo of sound
Mosin-Nagant round
Enemy bound
 
In the blink of an eye
Pace of it
Bullet hits
The hear of it
 
Momentarily he stands
In a swaying state
Zaytsev,s shot
Seals his fate
 
As panic unfolds
As to where the shot came
This white uniformed assassin
In his theatre domain
 
This Ural peasant
Soviet Hero
In a battered Stalingrad
Where moral was zero
 
This silent killer
Who seen out this war
In Kiev city
A Red Soviet Star

Street Fighting Years

In the cold Russian Winters
To deter the enemy so
These red starred fighters
Street fighting they would know

The bloodiest in modern history 
Thousands fell to earth
Fighting for their freedom
On the country of their birth

Hand to hand engagements
A bayonet to the girth
Another fallen soldier
Fighting for their worth

Operation Barbarossa
Is the theatre to discuss
In the boundaries of success
To free the likes of us

The power of it's industry
German's desired to greed
Avenue to the Caucasus
Would fuel their war torn seed

In the midst of battle
So many mechanical germs
The Stuka, dive bomber German
The T-34 in volume swarmed

But the winner in this battle
Was the want to save their city
Mother nature intervened
And the Germans were shown no pity   

For all their strategy and might
The winter took it's toll
With fighting on two fronts
Their armies no longer strolled

Supplies were short in demand
What were, struggled through
For mother nature we thank
She was on the side of the true

When history looks back
In view to the red star brigades
The Germans held ninety percent
But the street fighters would never fade
 

Telemark

Imagine a world if they made it first
Their want to dominate would continue to thirst
Heavy Water to be their goal
More innocent lives, more lost souls
 
The German want for Nuclear Arms
Brought them to, Telemark's charms
A county in scenic south Norway
If they achieve, the world will pray
 
1942, at Vemork Power Station
Scientist boffins on the road to creation
Allied forces, intelligence heard
Sabotage on the tongue is the word
 
November 1942 Operation Freshman starts 
The 1st British Airborne
From Wick, Scotland they part
Destination Møsvatn - frozen lake
Where hero's will land
For the worlds sake
 
But tragedy hits, the gliders crash land
Soldiers captured, now with German command
Gestapo interrogate these fathers and sons
On Hitlers Order
Machine gunned
 
Operation Swallow and Gunnerside
Norwegian and British commando pride
Take on this mission to destroy this plant
If they fail, they face German rant
Production impeded as they make their escape
To Ski to safety and dodge their drape
 
A decision is made to bomb the plant
143 B-17's as many bombs grant
Many fail to hit their mark
This Heavy Water terror in Telemark
Damage is little as the Germans act
Shipped back to Germany by boat and rail track
 
On February 20th 1944
The ferry ship SF Hydro is at the fore
Her laid-en cargo in railed tanks
By the grace of god, about to be sunk
Plastic explosive, alarm clocks
Ignite together as the Hydro rocks
As her Stern sinks,the tanks roll
Into the fjord, jeopardise German goal
 
All hero's they are to risk their lives
As this conflict of history
Is told from their eyes
To sabotage this plant and its Holy Water
And saved the world from Ultimate Slaughter
 

 

The Quiet Man
 
Trigger squeezed, rifling holds
Snipers shot, truly hits home
Target down, slip away