Interned By the Americans at Freimann

Dachau-Allach was liberated by the Americans on May 1, 1945, but liberation did not mean freedom yet: Borowski found himself in a camp for displaced persons near Munich.

I have a friend whose father spent time in Germany at the end of the war. At the age of twelve, he had become the breadwinner of his family, and had to earn his living while the area where he lived was occupied by the Americans. I heard a few stories from him about living during that time, how there were always armies around and of the wreckage around him. And yes, the Allies kept the camps going after the war, probably because they saw no other way to deal with the mess the Nazis had left behind.

Poems:
Return to Life · Project: Flag · Curriculum Vitae
New Deal · Shreds of Freedom · Lines in an Autograph Album

RETURN TO LIFE

Poems long dead are coming to life
in forgotten images, shards of metaphors;
carefully I put them together, collect them
gradually into a folder, lock them in the closet.

A woman in a kerchief walking in the street,
the cutting rain, the wind whistles: November.
The woman gathers firewood and withered leaves,
she carries a basketful home to burn.

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PROJECT: FLAG

(they're already threatening to lock up Communists)

We're fed up with national colors!
The pigment of life is what we want,
not what's on show for holidays.
Let's give every flag new colors --
The Polish flag will be striped!
The stripes, of course, are prison bars ...

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CURRICULUM VITAE

I did not join the Home Army
I did not work for the Resistance.
I spent my nights studying
at the underground university.

My friends looked death in the face,
many were killed, as in any battle,
and I wrote about Liebert,
Staff, epithets and rhythm.

I did not smuggle goods to Warsaw,
I never went to trendy bars.
I wrote poems. Not for fame,
but because I had to. Trifles. Youth.

I was not a gold broker,
I didn't know the rates of exchange.
I had a girl. Long nights, my love ...
Where is she? Torture ...

That was my life ... poems, love,
without character, empty, pale.
Perhaps it would not have been wasted
if I'd killed just one single German.

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NEW DEAL

I walk around and blink my eyes,
jot notes down on my pad -
the duties of a reporter
from some third-rate paper -
but more for myself and out of habit
than for any future readers;
my style is lousy, alas.

The Americans have proclaimed Victory
and divided it into calories.
They shook out Europe like a pillow
in the struggle for the people,
but it's just like old times - strikes and hunger.

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SHREDS OF FREEDOM

Like a rat grabs a throat, the wind
will suddenly clutch
and mangle and tear to shreds
the banners raised in victory.

It will drive out the mob, heap it
together - hungry, evil, ruthless.
Prudent men will speak out
in vain.

We will burn the state slaughter houses,
we will break open the government jails,
we will plunder the gold and the meat.
We won't go hungry any more.

We will bump off the soldiers and cops,
smash their clubs and bayonets.
For us - theaters, movies, cafes.
For us - steaks, women, and cars.

We will strike out like a prison gong
at every hospital, barracks and church.
Like chains we will tear from our hands
the four bloody shreds of freedom.

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LINES IN AN AUTOGRAPH ALBUM

. . . maybe I should just let myself
tumble downhill like a stone
and like a statue see the world
through cold lifeless eyes.

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An unjailed man, seeing Europe after the war.