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Remembering D-Day

From Dr. John Guzlowski remembering the anniversary of the Allied invasion of Europe: D-Day Remembrance

Today, June 6, is the anniversary of the invasion of Europe, and by chance I was in a high school about to begin a presentation about my parents and their experiences in the Nazi concentration camps when an announcement came on asking the students in the school to remember the anniversary of D-Day.

As the speaker talked about what D-Day was, I thought about all that day meant to me, my parents’ long years as Polish forced laborers in Nazi Germany, the refugee camps after the war, the family killed and left behind, our coming to the US as DPs.

When the announcement ended, I began my presentation with a poem about my father’s liberation from the camps. Here’s the poem:

In the Spring the War Ended

For a long time the war was not in the camps.
My father worked in the fields and listened
to the wind moving the grain, or a guard
shouting a command far off, or a man dying…

Current Events, Perspective, PNCC, Poetry,

Tornado in poetry

From Dr. John Z. Guzlowski:

I’ve been watching the Joplin news and posted a poem that I wrote years ago about a tornado that hit a small central Illinois town we were living in.

I’m posting as an additional reflection on the recent tornado in nearby Springfield, Massachusetts which touched down about one mikle away from St. Joseph’s PNC Parish.

Here are the first two stanzas of this powerful poem. As a parent, it tore through me.

My Daughter Lillian is Outside Playing

In the quiet space of the dining room
My wife and I lay out the place settings

The forks beside the Wedgwood plates
The spoons and knives in their places…

Poetry

December 19 – What the War Taught Her by John Guzlowski

My mother learned that sex is bad,
Men are worthless, it is always cold
And there is never enough to eat.

She learned that if you are stupid
With your hands you will not survive
The winter even if you survive the fall.

She learned that only the young survive
The camps. The old are left in piles
Like worthless paper, and babies
Are scarce like chicken and bread.

She learned that the world is a broken place
Where no birds sing, and even angels
Cannot bear the sorrows God gives them.

She learned that you don’t pray
Your enemies will not torment you.
You only pray that they will not kill you.

Translated to Polish by Bohdan Zadura

Moja matka nauczyła się, że seks jest zły,
Mężczyźni są nic nie warci, jest zawsze zimno
I nigdy nie ma dosyć jedzenia.

Nauczyła się, że jeśli masz dwie lewe
Ręce nie przeżyjesz
Zimy, nawet jeśli przeżyjesz jesień.

Nauczyła się, że tylko młodzi przeżywają
Obozy. Starzy zostają na kupie
Jak makulatura, a niemowlęta
są tak rzadkie jak kurczęta i chleb.

Nauczyła się, że świat jest niepewnym miejscem
Gdzie nie śpiewają ptaki i nawet anioły
Nie mogą unieść smutku, który daje im Bóg.

Nauczyła się, że nie należy się modlić
Aby wrogowie cię nie torturowali.
Modlić się trzeba o to, żeby cię nie zabili.

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