Pigtail

While we were in the room with the hair in, the LFA team gave us this poem to read:

Pigtail

 

When all the women in the transport
Had their head shaved
Four workmen with brooms made of birch twigs
Swept up
And gathered the hair

 

Behind clean glass
The stiff hair lies
Of those suffocated in gas chambers
There are pins and slide combs
In this hair

 

The hair is not shot through with light
Is not parted by the breeze
Is not touched by any hand
Or rain or lips

 

In huge chests
Clouds of dry hair
Of those suffocated
And a faded plait
a pigtail with a ribbon
Pulled at school
By naughty boys

-Tadeusz Różewicz, The museum, Auschwitz, 1948