Timmy's Journal - 55. The Evidence Room - a haibun

The Evidence Room

a Haibun

We went to see the wonders of the Vikings at the museum. They were, we discovered, so much more than violent plunderers; they were in fact, artisans, farmers, and people who knew the seas. How brave to set off in hopes of finding land, to go viking.

Leaving behind these people we moved on to more modern times and an exhibit called The Evidence Room. I knew what it was, why, and what had happened, but I was not prepared enough …

The room is ghostly white and silent like a tomb

In here I wander alone, wanting no one near

I reach out and touch the plaster reliefs

See the camp, and the trains, the buildings

And the ovens

The next thing I see is the door. Well thought out it seems. That in itself is an abomination—that someone saw the problem of keeping gas in, keeping 2,000 victims in—and then to wonder; how do you open a door normally when the dead are piled against it?

Simple solutions to big problems

And it must be efficient

Cover the peep hole with wire

So victims cannot break it

Have the door open outward not in

So the dead do not interfere with the economic disposal

Of themselves

The gas column, it is floor to ceiling a cage within a cage to keep those who do not want to die out. I can see it, hear the fear—the screams—as they realize this is no mere shower.

I am cold

Chills and horror run through my soul

I can't breathe

There is no sound, yet I hear them

Tears sit close in my eyes

This room is filled with the dead

I want to leave here, this room of evidence proving the Holocaust was real, that teems with the voices and tears of the dead. But, there is more to see, the hand written words and drawings of the architects—the plans— and the ladder and the hatch.

Yes, the hatch. The small outward opening maybe 16 inches by 18 inches, that seals shut, and the ladder; you need the ladder because the hatch is up high—out of reach of the victims.

After the gas is released, after the screaming stopped, all in the time most of us have breaks at our jobs, 15 minutes, then guards would climb the ladder, open the hatch to ensure the victims were all dead.

This room

Where you can touch the past

See what they saw

It is quiet; ghostly

Yet I want to cover my ears

Block out their voices

For it seems they still need to be heard

Because some do not believe

And on top of the horror here

That

is

the worst of it.

_____