The Ovens and Bakers of Auschwitz

The Ovens at Auschwitz

"Three hundred and sixty corpses every half hour, which was all the time it took to reduce human flesh to ashes, made 720 per hour, or 17,280 corpses per twenty-four hour shift.

And the ovens, with murderous efficiency, functioned day and night.

However, one must also take into account the death pits, which could destroy another 8,000 cadavers a day.

In round numbers, about 24,000 corpses were handled each day. An admirable production record—one that speaks well for German industry."

-- from Five Chimneys: A Woman Survivor's True Story of Auschwitz by Olga Lengyel

_____

Here's a poem of mine about the men who burned the corpses at Auschwitz :-

The Bakers of Auschwitz

We hear in this oven
this scented room
the sighs of dough
rising

a confection of worldly
advice, a jelly
of dreams, the light
of these souls
bursting blackbirds
in a hurricane
of light

a marzipan of
human form and spirit
spreading a marmalade

breasts lips
soft hair thighs
in ribbons and foiled paper

that will feed us
and those

in the sewers of Stalingrad
the streets of Tripoli Benghazi

their Jew eyes
liquid sugar their Jew teeth
without cheeks their Jew tummies
so pure so thin so fine

hurry my children my church

a feast a wealth
a delicious legato
a slow wind of notes

Essen essen essen