Poetry Analysis of \"And the Sun Still

Poetry Analysis of "And the Sun Still Dared to Shine"

The Holocaust during World War II is one of the best documented and most horrendous periods of human existence. There have been other times in history where as many were senselessly killed in a short amount of time, but never have they been subjected to all of the horrors to which the Jews in the concentration camps were participants. A book of poetry by Peter Sheponik called "And the Sun Still Dared to Shine" was recently gathered to showcase free verse poetry written by survivors of the Holocaust. It is powerful book, filled with many themes that speak even more deeply to the horror and loss experienced during those dark years. This paper will look at three poems -- "In the Country," "Children of the Gas" and "Bread of Life" -- through which the theme of youth and the despair such a time brings to those who should be laughing and playing rather than giving their childhood up to worry about destruction.

Every person has some memory of being young, and to most it is a carefree time. Unfortunately, there is a small segment of the population that does not care about the innocence of youth due to their own selfish desires. Adolph Hitler convinced his people, in his charismatic way, that even the blameless, children of the Jews could not be left alive to infect the Aryan race. He may have even believed that the children were the most to be despise because they could grow into long-lived members of the hated race. These three poems discuss what effects Hitler's obsession had on children.

The first poem is entitled "In the Country." The first lines of the poem relate "Below a barn floor/an opening like a grave dug for one/filled with two sisters/who lay side by side for months"(1-4). The initial takeaway from this poem is that death hung over the two sisters. They were in a depression in which the children are hidden. At first reading, it is not possible to tell what the condition of the sisters is. But, then death is seen in the fact that they allow "the razor sharp bite of rats' teeth/gnawing the tender flesh" (18-19), and that "they floated like pickles/in the belly of the salt barrel" (24-25). The terms of their death was not pleasant, though death can hardly ever be said to be a pleasant experience, but these little girls were tortured by their need to be quiet.

"Children of the Gas" is more obviously about children, and the subject is easily seen in the title of the poem. The opening stanzas of this poem state that "The very young, three to five-year-olds,/slipped between the spaces/of the twisted dead,/finding just enough air/among the bodies so tightly packed/that the gas couldn't reach." These children were thrown into the gas chamber with their parents and they were able, for a time to survive because they found pockets of air because the bodies were so tightly packed. Unfortunately, even though they made a "final surge toward the ceiling,/one body climbing over the other/in the final race for air" (12-14), they did not find escape. The children worked their way through the protective bodies only to find others looking for them. The dead bodies were "pulled apart with grappling hooks,/revealing these babes/whose second chances were/grasped like little ankles/in SS fists and smashed/like small skulls against the bleeding walls" (24-29) This last part of the poem speaks to the violent death that ended the hopeful youth that clawed for the air that ad always been there before. All they found was the soldiers searching for survivors and the smashing death that awaited them.