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Teaching the Holocaust and other Genocides

"On a Sunny Evening"

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On a purple, sun-shot evening
Under wide-flowering chestnut trees
Upon the threshold full of dust
Yesterday, today, and the days are all like these.

Trees flower forth their beauty,
Lovely, too, their very wood all gnarled and old
That I am half afraid to peer
Into their crowns of green and gold.

The sun has made a veil of gold
So lovely that my body aches.
Above, the heavens shriek with blue
Convinced, I've smiled by some mistake.
The world's abloom and seems to smile.
I want to fly, but where, how high?
If in barbed wire things can bloom
Why couldn't  I? I will not die!

-Anonymous, 1944. Written by the children of Barracks L318 and L417, ages 10-16
in the Terezin Concentration Camp.

Discussion Questions

1. What does nature provide to the authors of this poem that makes them desire freedom?

2. Describe the emotions, body sensations, and desires the authors are expressing in the poem. Provide examples to support your answer.

3. Based on what you have learned about concentration camps, how does the authors' environment contrast with the natural world as described in the poem?