They Came in the Night (Current Edition) 2023 ~ Holocaust

They Came in the Night

Author’s Introduction

I

Composed in the late evening of Thursday, 13 January 2011 at my home on the Liverpool Waterfront
and published by Spiderwize in Meanderings (hardback edition) Second Anthology in October 2011.

Why?

That evening, I received a phone call from one of the directors of what is now the LGBT Foundation in Manchester.

The director explained that having read the Holocaust poem Shoah in Idle Thoughts (softback) published by Spiderwize in September 2009,
would I be prepared to write about the Holocaust from the perception of the thousands of gay, lesbian and transgender people
who were to receive ‘special treatment’, a euphemism for extermination?

I was unsure.

I explained that 'special treatment' was meted out to all those who did not conform to Nazi doctrine; i.e. the physically and mentally ill,
the physically disabled, and ethnic minorities such as the Romany populations in all of Nazi occupied countries, to name but a few.

The director certainly acknowledged this but as the Foundation was about to commemorate the International Holocaust Memorial Day
on 27 January 2011 in Manchester - and worldwide - would I be prepared to look at this terrible period of history
specifically through the eyes of lesbian, gay and transgender people, and then read the piece to an invited audience in Manchester on January 27?

I put the phone down and sat quietly. I had recently seen the film Valkyrie, about the failed July 1944 Bomb Plot.

The Film’s music score had etched itself on my mind. This score was on, in the background. I went upstairs to my study to do something else when,
as in all writing, the first line - they came in the night - suddenly flashed in my mind, and with such suddenness that - as writers will testify -
you just drop whatever you’re doing, grab a pen and write.

Sighting the elusive deer is a rare event, and almost always missed.
A moment's hesitation will lose that line forever.

I hastened swiftly back downstairs and swished open the curtains. 

It was dark, but I needed signs of life to reassure me, to strengthen me.
I needed to see the lamps on the Wirral and Wallasey Town Hall right opposite me,
the busyness and commercial traffic of the Mersey both up river and out to sea,
for already things were forming in my mind that I did not wish to acknowledge. 

It was Shoah all over again, only this time my childhood dread of that cursed railway platform,
thugs masquerading as officers, baying dogs, rifle butts, coal-skuttle helmets,
that terrifying blood-soaked cloak of inhumanity ~ naked women of all ages.
This last had indelibly imprinted itself on my tiny mind, because I tried to rationalise it
by thinking of my mum, my grandmothers and aunts, my sisters.
I did myself much damage and it took half a lifetime to talk about this to Mum.

And having lived through and experienced the Blitz at first hand, I hadn’t realised
just how powerfully my mum could reach out to me. Mum did so by stepping back in time,
joining up all the dots for me, including the frame around which my parents lost their
brothers in the Royal Air Force in 1943 and 1945 respectively. Mum went a step further.
There was no hatred nor bitterness.

II

The Mersey was busy that Thursday night.
A huge tanker was just passing up-river,
and the pilot-boats were racing fast down-river
on my side to meet ships on final approach in the Estuary.

I dimmed the lights, sat quietly at the dining table
making sure I could see ships’ lights out of the left eye’s corner,
and let the horror of that night time Waffen SS Aktion unfold
as I penned the first line They Came in the Night. 

Little did I know that the same thing would happen years later
with They Are Coming Down the Street Now,
but that is for another time, a different period, a different era.

III

As I penned the last line and laid down the pen I remained seated.
I did not like how I felt. 
No sense of accomplishment accompanied the final line and sign-off.
It seemed that a million thoughts were flying around in my head
each in total contradiction with any and every other thought.

I walked to the windows, opened them!

A blast of air hit me so hard, my fairly long hair at that time, went on end.
But it was fresh and clean and I remember the sails of the model ship Belem
on the glass book table rushing 'full blown', even causing the huge model to move slightly forward!
A cast heavy metal figurine of a father holding a baby was blown clean off,
landing with an almighty thud almost two meters behind me!

Ah! Never underestimate the Mersey winds!!

I peered down 24 meters (79 feet) below me. The waters in the dock basin were rough that night.

There was much spray, but beyond the old moorings of the SS Lusitania
there was a steady stream of traffic on the river still,
many green and red, port and starboard, lights glinting;
their movement showed that the river, too, was in anxious mood,
angry even.

I, too, was angry. Very angry.

IV

It was dark. I could not see the Fort Perch Lighthouse
out on New Brighton Point and which each morning
I would lean out and glimpse,
always my means of obtaining the day's bearing.

But I could well imagine the surf on those rocks, that perch;
indeed, if I listened, the howling winds would, sometimes,
carry inward the whoosh of surf.
Wall paintings rattled, one - my most cherished,
a 21st birthday gift from my parents - 2 meters above me was banging.

I clearly remember hearing the large canvas reverberating
in the way that a shp’s sail does;
and yet I felt peace, total peace. 

I pushed hard and banged shut the windows.
Easier said than done.
The room was as if there had been a storm in it.
And I guess there had been.

I righted the ship,
picked up the family portrait frames from the floor
and returned them next to the ship;
returned father and child,
quietly noting the slight indentation in the planked flooring,
gathered together the books, and finally the manuscript,
and drew closed the long curtains. 

Oddly, the manuscript had remained in situ
on the long dining table behind me,
almost unmoved,
still with the pen resting on it.

The wind seemed to have gone all around the room
but missed the dining table completely.
What I call one of Nature’s imponderables.

Leave the darkness of the night baying at the windows;
it would not touch me here where I was safe,
warm and, thank G-D, free.

Upstairs, the skylights in the bedrooms were playing their own noisy tune;
it would be a busy night tonight.
The heavy slates of this very old warehouse would move much;
not the first time had I heard such movement
and then a second later, a heavy, explosive splash 30 meters (98 feet) below from the roofing.

V

I made a coffee.
I sat back down at the table.
The room was silent.

Waterloo Warehouse, Waterloo Dock, Liverpool

The heavy slates of this very old warehouse would move much; not the first time had I heard such movement and then a second later, a heavy, explosive splash 30 meters (98 feet) below.

We writers do not like reading over our work.
We know we will find mistakes and inconsistencies.
We know too, we will copy-edit, proof-read,
convince ourselves all is now ready for sign-off,
and still an elusive typo or wrong phrase will evade us,
yet shout out like a street protest
when we look at it with fresh eyes when we revisit a day later.

There is a romantic notion that writing is lightweight;
one just sits and writes and loafs around.
But writers well know the emotions that grip to enable us to write at all!
The skill of writing is too often, painful and gut-wrenching.
The people and situations are, in the writing, as real as the minute we find ourselves at,
at this point in the manuscript.
The manuscript lives and breathes.
The manuscript is, to the writer, their baby.

VI

The coffee felt good. Yes, felt is the right word.
It wrapt itself about me like a cloak,
whispering, 'go on, read it. It's okay.’

And so I read back to myself that which I had penned an hour earlier. 

As I read, the stanzas seemed to play music back to me.
But there is no music playing! 

And then I realised!
As I wrote the lines

Dear Reader, I do not see myself a poet. I have not the skill or breadth of knowledge and intellect

the main theme to the film Valkyrie 
had been playing quietly in the background.
It had long since stopped.

But here, within the cadences and stanzas
I could hear again the German Choral Society,
the German Resistance Movement,
the German words and phrases,
the cries of horror, of anxiety,
of hope, of peace,
in German … 

… and the reading of it
was even worse than the writing. 
I felt as if I had been stretched
beyond imagination.

That night I sent it to Manchester.

VII

It takes thirteen minutes to read out loud, a little longer sometimes,
because one has to pick oneself up
from stumbling over yet another unseen emotion.
But my audience stayed with me on 27 January 2011.

There is not a family in the world that has not,
in some way, been adversely affected by the brute actions
of demented human beings. 

I walked back to the windows,
parted the long drapes; it was very dark now
and the rain lashed the panes;
sometimes, it sounded like splinters hitting the glass…
Ah! the rain, despite the salt, is freezing mid-air off the Mersey.
I pulled to, the drapes again.
I needed to be still, to be at peace.
To gather my thoughts.

What on earth have I written? I thought.
I must sit away from that table.
It is the scene of outrage.
I want no part of it.
I’ll sit beneath Grandma’s portrait.
I’m always safe, there.

What on earth have I written? I thought.

I must sit away from that table. It is the scene of outrage. I want no part of it. I’ll sit beneath Grandma’s portrait. I’m always safe, there.

VIII

Officially, it is said that the Second World War accounted, all told, for 55 million deaths.
Historians and statisticians presently suggest that the figure is more likely 85 million,
tending even toward 100 million.

I take a neutral line. It is easy to make statistics emotional.

That is why it is imperative
that we teach young people today
the horrors of yesterday.

As I often heard my grandparents say,
all four of whom lost sons and brothers,
and my mum and dad say throughout my life

We, and you, must never let this happen again.

IX

My many German friends echo this even more so. 

But what does cause me to worry is their observation
that the young people of today
are not really aware of the magnitude
of what happened over the 12 long, rabid, years
of that infamous thousand year Reich. 

It is for us to keep alive the tenets of freedom
and to champion freedom,
and resist outdated notions and ideologies,
even religions, yes, perhaps this last, even more so;
when the tendency to take them literally becomes too strong,
and when that happens, the inevitable consequent reckoning.

Anti-semitism is rising again.
Things are not good in Israel.

And having reviewed this,
now with the disgrace and infamy of Capitol Hill on 6 January 2021,
followed by the Invasion of Ukraine by Russia on 24 February 2022
and which finds Russia not disputing this week
that some 117,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the War in Europe,
let us hope that the wider American People
will take whatever action is necessary
to prevent Donald Trump ever being the public and privare menace that he is,
and that the leaders of the great democracies
will never permit an American president - or any authoritarian leader - to run amok,
bringing us all to the brink of nuclear war,
and encouraged by 74 million voters who would,
truth be known, give anything
to see full-blown fascism in their country.

24 January 2023
All Rights Reserved

12 October 2023
All Rights Reserved


LIVERPOOL


© 2023 Kenneth Thomas Webb

[i] Main Image Courtesy of the author's nieces on their visiting this horrendous place 

[ii] Other Images Courtesy KTW from Meanderings published in Hardback by Spiderwize in 2011 with all rights reserved to the author, and to the Artist and Portrait Photographer Alexander Petricca, with whom it was a privilege to work.

THEY CAME IN THE NIGHT

Chapter I

They came in the night
when we were sleeping.
Smashing of rifle butts,
door hinges flying,
screams from downstairs;
the pitter-patter of
terrorised infant feet
against the screeching
thud of studded jackboots.

Terrorised, I lay
Was it my bed or was
it me shaking?
Why was I sweating
when outside it was cold?

'Oh look! Here's one of 'em
fucking queers!!
Hey look he's
wet the fucking bed
Get up you queers
You fags!’

Johannes had long hair
I had told him to get it cut.
They used it to pull 
him from our bed.

He screamed!
He took a swipe
at the soldier 
and paid with his life.

It's how they did it
That's what freezes me numb;
I can't even say it.

Chapter II

Thrown against the wall.
The picture crashing down
on my head,
glass splintering
and still the screaming downstairs,
terror unmitigated
lawlessness reigning.
Where were the Police,
the safeguard of liberty?

Chapter III

'What have I done?'

'You dare to ask me 
what you've done
you scum?
You filth, you little pervert
You're homosexual
That's what you've done!

You're unnatural

You're to be eliminated

The Führer only wants
a clean Aryan society
people who don't corrupt,
people who know how to live …

You're worse than the Jews'

But... …

I don't know what hit me
I don't know who hit me
I do remember thugs
dressed in soldiers’ uniforms
smashing the room up…
It was a long while
before I learned that
thugs and soldiery
were one and the same
in Nazi Germany.

I saw Johannes lifeless
A boot trod on him.

I don't know how
I got to the road
I can't remember
the four flights,
though I do remember
blood seeping in between 
ancient cracks of
cold stone steps.

The whole street was in uproar!
All of us rounded up.
Endless screaming, 
shouting,
cursing, 
shots,
pleas for mercy 
going unheeded …

A woman shouting out

'No please, please don't... …'

… then momentary silence 
in the midst of a maelstrom
the reply to her pleas.

Many of my friends 
in other trucks;
others lying in the wet,
either already departed,
or right then
giving up their souls…

Chapter IV

I saw Medwin [i]
I froze!
I was with him last week.

He would not look at me
from behind his SS uniform.
How can a man wear
the death’s head
and go to church on Sonntag?

I caught his eye and wish I hadn't
for as if in revenge,
as if to cover his tracks,
he grabbed Heidi's long hair…

She was in the wrong place
at the wrong time…
Standing, dazed
He knew her
We’d laughed and joked
last week
He catapulted her against the
blackened bricks …
and she was gone.
Mercifully, in an instant.

He was rabid.
They all were.

In a cold, calculated,
measured tone,
looking straight at me,
he addressed his thugs:

Meine Herren, in den Worten von Reichsführer Himmler …
„Wir müssen diese Menschen ausrotten
Wurzel und Zweig ...
Der Homosexuelle 
muss eliminiert werden”

Gentlemen,
In the words of Reichsführer Himmler …
"We must exterminate these people 
root and branch... 
the homosexual must
be eliminated.”

He slapped his thigh.
This cruel blond Aryan
This double-dealing 
closeted homosexual,
a signal for the orgy 
of beatings and killings 
to begin afresh.

Chapter V

I had nothing on
when I was walking in the street
but crouching here
I'm wedged in by a mass
of heaving bodies.

I can't stand but somehow
I seem to have a shawl on,
or something…

The slow rhythmic clatter…
The railway sleepers.
Where are we going?
Who put me in here?
The stench!

I tried to stand…

A hand pressed my shoulder
A voice clear and distinct
over the weeping and wailing
and gnashing of teeth

Do not try to get up Dieter
Rest while you can
You are safe here
Look around you

In the darkness my eyes
became aware of a
differing light …

Not sun light
Not day light
An extraordinary Light
emanating, shimmering
Forms I began to make out

We were subjugated,
all of us in the cattle truck
But these weren't!
They stood apart …
… and yet totally amongst us

I'm surely hallucinating!
Or was this a fourth 
or fifth dimension, even?

Silent, to myself
I yearned for Johannes…

Johannes is safe
That voice again.

And as I looked at
this man beside me
I followed his gaze …
Johannes
as I had never seen him before
ever more beautiful
that beaming smile
his flaxen hair restored

His lips did not move
but it was his voice…

Have courage Dieter
You will do great things
Don't worry about me
Be strong and valiant

Help the weak and poorly
at your destination’s arrival

Again his lips did not move 
but his whisper was clear…
and in a crisper, clearer
shortened language

Dieter, 
Look! Behold!!

Here, the very Host of Heaven
They were there 
with us all in the night
when the Nazis came!

They will be with you all,
without exception
You must maintain your faith
You must see this through

Chapter VI

Another voice
An image
Then I saw her
radiant as ever,
Heidi!

And I burst uncontrollably into tears

What gives people 
the right to exact
such evil on each other?

I raged within!
I screamed!!
I vomited!!!
I messed myself again!!!!

Oh Johannes, Heidi
Why, why, why
do they do this to us?

Where do I go?
What did you mean Johannes?

Is there even greater evil awaiting us?

Chapter VII [ii]

THIS FIGURE stood before me
His Voice like cool waters overs rocks
A resonance and pitch of beauty unfathomable
His Eyes the like of which
I've never seen before nor since

He spoke with an all enveloping love
I cannot even describe

But I cried…
and He held and lifted me up

How intoxicating is an embrace
after total rejection

My People, your people, 
will come through this Dieter
Have faith
Be of good courage
For ~ I AM ~ YHWH is ~ with you
and He is indeed with you even now…

Out of the corner of my eyes
these myriad figures
… this Host
upon hearing that Utterance
faced Him …
oh, so, so briefly bowed their heads
time itself pausing,
daring not to interrupt them…

… and then returned to my friends,
against the hypnotic 
clackety-clack below us
There were thousands of us
There were thousands of them
For every one of us
there seemed to be four of them
Such is the reality between
dimensions
between die Hölle auf Erden [iii]

The Man continued
A Voice again of many waters
And there will come a time
when people will look back 
upon this horror 
and use it as a benchmark
that people might not resort to it again

Many here will lose their lives today
but they will live forever with Me…

You, I have a different task, Dieter
You must be strong!

Take up the mantle of My people…

I do not differentiate in sexuality Dieter
I am the Creator!
And what I create is perfect!
It is only fallen man 
that makes for imperfection

Lead My people Dieter
when all this is over

Stand testimony Dieter
in the four corners of the earth
that it was not only My Chosen People
who saw that 
of whom I showed King Nebuchadnezzar
when I appeared to him in the fiery furnace
what will become known 
as the ovens of Auschwitz…

Take courage!
This Host attends you all
You see the powers of darkness
Now I give you the briefest Glimpse
of that which holds them in check
and you see My Deity…

For I AM the Commander of the Army of The LORD [iv]
And I fell upon my face and worshipped
for the ground upon which I stood was Holy

And He smiled with His Eyes

I go now Dieter
I and My Father are One
by the Grace of Our Spirit
you are greatly blessed...

Lead My people!

I made you as you are
It is My intention that you 
should love a man
Ignore My Word's 
misinterpretation.
That is merely man's doing.

Stand true. Believe Me!

Chapter VIII

When I came to
a man was kneeling...
He smiled!

Dieter you are greatly blessed
Now prepare yourself 
for you will see horrendous things

But remember
All of us are here
even in the gas chambers

You will come through this
He will bring incredible blessings
upon you and your people

By your life's end
you will have witnessed great freedoms
that you cannot now comprehend
then your final work commences

To ensure that your people 
become strong and resolute 
in their determination
to bring justice and freedom 
to your people
for there will be regimes 
that will resort
to medieval measures
to destroy you, just like now…

They will not succeed
but for a time the Destroyer
will appear to prevail 
in Middle Eastern
and African lands [v]

Chapter IX

A screeching noise
Long and tormented
Metal on metal
as we slowed down …
cattle trucks shunting
shuddering to a halt,
all of us tipping over
each other,
our excrement,
our vomit
our blood!

Chapter X

Dogs barking, vicious, straining
A great clanking sound
Locks being released...

A blast of air
doors sliding aside...

Armed guards...
Lines of German Shepherds
baying
curiously summing up
the vicousness
of Germanic Peoples

A wicked evil platform
jackbooted long-coated
SS officers chatting,
smoking,
the Death's Knell supreme!

Raus, raus, raus!
Schnell, schnell!

Chapter XI

die Hollen auf Erden [vi]
Hell on Earth … …

Chapter XII

The stench in the air!
I looked in horror…

I screamed!!

NO Ludovic!!! 

Say nothing... ... …!!!!!!!!

He lay writhing on the floor,
the guard standing over him
drawing his rifle butt up
to... …

A Light! Lightning-like!! A man stepped forth from nowhere …

A Light! Lightning-like!!

A man stepped forth
from no where
and tapped, as if, this thug's wrist

I heard not what he said
he dropped his rifle
with a clatter... ... ... 

looked about him …
Where had he gone????

In the mayhem
this trembling coal-skuttle thug
staggered to the side of a truck
shaking so much
he dropped his cigarettes
vomiting over the couplings,
and from the other end
shat his pants
his coal-skuttle helmet 
falling from his head

I rushed to Ludovic …

Ludovico!!
Don't do that again!!!
You have to live to fight another day.
TRUST ME!!!!

But Dieter, where is Jose?
They've taken Jose

No Ludovic they haven't
He is there, three lines down
A work routine

Look there's Andrew and Darren,
Ken too!

Come on. You will NOT give in!

They will all be safe

Those other lines are not... ...
they are going to another place … …

I did not know how I knew
these things
but I knew them to be true

This Figure, Lightning-like, smiled

Eine solche Ermutigung
war wie Wein an den Lippen
und ich erhaschte einen Blick … … …
… … … auf Adler Flügel!

Such encouragement
was as wine is to the lips
and I caught a glimpse … … …
… … … of Eagle’s Wings!

He addressed the thug,
I barely believed what I heard:

Ich muss nicht kämpfen
Ich muss nur anfassen
und ich werde dich entwaffen und besiegen!
Und einer größer als ich
muss nur sprechen,
und es ist!

I don’t have to fight
I merely need to touch
and I will disarm and defeat you!

And One greater than I
has only to speak,
and it is!

Chapter XIII

This our task, 
Dieter mused a lifetime on
as pen to paper he quietly moved,
the words of another great man
that had been a beacon light
to millions in those dark and evil times

"This our task.
To rid the world of brute oppression,
tyranny and fear…"

Yes. 
Those words still stand true.
Our community must 
oppose and expose
the executions
beheadings
imprisonments
beatings
torture
and persecutions 
in other lands
less tolerant than ours

 AND warn against 
complacency
in our lands too

END

 [i] Medwin … meaning faithful friend (Old German)

[ii] Seven. The Perfect Number. I wrote the Chapter Heading and only after realised it imagines The Most High, Meschiach, Der Messias, revealing Himself to Dieter.

[iii] /

[iv] Joshua 5 : 14

[v] This was written before the Arab Spring, before the Civil War in Syria, before Yemen, before Daesh

Afterword

I cannot emphasise enough how well Alexander Long approached the task on Liverpool Crosby Beach. It is no easy commission to take upon the mantle - without speech to aid him - the personification of the angel of the Lord, on the one hand, and the character of Dieter Baumgartner on the other hand. Fact? Fiction? Myth? I know not.

Alexander had read They Came in the Night, and it shook him; he was about to attend university. So it was a wonderful day indeed when the five of us, Alexander, Alexander Petricca, Heidi and Ludovic all met for coffee and lunch at Café Rouge in the Met Quarter in Liverpool. Here, I was able to introduce Alexander to Heidi and Ludovic, not much older than he, very much alive and well, and very real! What joy for me to hear them chat about the future, their hopes, their ambitions and their sheer love of life. We writers have a responsibility. It is so important that we keep this in mind.

I remember Alex (Petricca) saying,
as we were all departing,
I enjoyed that Mate! Same time Starbucks on Saturday?
You bet Al’.
See you then!

In Hamburg, I was enjoying a coffee and roll in the entrance of the Hamburg Hauptbahnhof one evening when I suddenly sensed three people closing in on me from behind. ‘Once a policeman always a policeman’ is the old saying, and I turned round and they were young, forming a triangle, and here were Medwin, Johannes and Dieter. Medwin smiled, nodded, and said Hi… I smiled and decided, I think I know what’s happening so let’s seize the initiative … and I replied in English, Good evening guys.

Medwin laughed, and in perfect English replied, Ah-ha! I knew it. You’re english!

Yes. And are you three by any chancing attempting to pick me up?

And they all giggled and exchanged knowing glances and I laughed with them, and said, because keep in mind I’m a retired police officer and I’m a lawyer.

I had hit the nail on the head! And we talked a great deal.

Medwin explained his dilemma.

Johannes, very blond, was quickly approached by a man many years older than me and before I knew it they were getting into the man’s car. Shortly afterwards so did Dieter. I could not believe it.

Medwin, we are at the main entrance, for goodness sake. What on earth is going on?

He laughed.

Oh, this is Hamburg Ken!

We talked a lot that night, he was spiralling, drugs too was a problem, as too with Johannes and Dieter who would pop back now and again.

But I also learned a great deal that night. We talked about everything, even the War and the Cold War and Reunification.

They will be approaching 40 now, but I remember returning to my hotel and the sadness .. all three wanted to be free of the spiral they were in … but locked in.

And my presence heightened their dilemma as they could see I was, mercifully, outside that spiral, free, unattached, not searching.

And it is no different here, today.

Medwin wrestled with sexuality. He liked both, and explained the anger caused by very natural frustration.

12 October 2023
All Rights Reserved


LIVERPOOL


© 2023 Kenneth Thomas Webb

They Came in the Night was written in my Author Name Ian Bradley Marshall, Marshall being my Mother’s maiden name.