Otto Freundlich
In Majdanek, as I was dying,
I saw the stained glass windows of Chartres Cathedral
blood-red with shame at what had come.
But the beautiful broken faces of the Jews were lit
by an ethereal and peaceful flame
both diffuse and coherent
as they turned into their pain.
Our deaths were of a kind,
and woven, in kaleidoscopic tones
of rose and white.
In Majdanek, as I was dying
I understood the artist
as the hope inside history,
and I remembered how,
in Paris,
we had lived in poverty
for the sake of light .
