Disappear During World War ll, The German Jews were forced to live in intolerable condition and being hunted to death, many died of starvation and diseases. They were also placed in gas chambers. Children who were not able to work were the first ones to die. This reveal how much trouble, pain and tears they have been through. In the poem, “from Ten Songs”, by W. H Auden, the author’s words do not just simply express the inequality of being Jews as he describe the many imagery of unfairness but to show that they were actually experiencing life as if they didn’t exist.
The poem begins by introducing a city with ten million people in it. “Say this city has ten million souls” (1). Some are lucky enough to have the luxury of living in the mansion, this is directly contrasted with the rest who are living in abhorrent condition, holes. However, there is not even a “hole” for these people. “Some are living in mansion, some are living in holes / yet there’s no place for us, my dear, yet there’s no place for us” (1-3). Having no shelter, in this case bring up the idea of alienated. This indicates the very start of showing their non-existence by saying they do not belong to anywhere.
Similarly, the speaker didn’t have a passport and so he is consider as dead which also is another way of saying he doesn’t exist. “The consul banged the table and said, / “If you’ve got no passport you’re officially dead” (10-11). He cried “But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive. ” (12), showing the frustration towards the situation that he’s facing. The author uses “dead” in contrast to “alive” to illustrate the confrontation between what the speakers think of them self as “alive” and what the Nazis think of them as “dead”.
In the Nazi’s mind, the German Jews do not live. Furthermore, in stanza seven, the author uses the imagery of thunder rumbling in as a jet fighter running across the sky. “Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky” (23). This raises the idea of the current event which is World War l1 compare to the war that The German Jews are fighting to survive. Although the non-existence of the Jews is confirmed by their treatment, Hitler’s words show that they are still exist because they must be exist in order to be killed. It was Hitler over Europe saying; “they must die” / we were in his my, my dear, we were in his mind” (24-25) Even though without passport they are considered as non-existence. Hitler’s words raises the hope that he is still exist. In fact, they are mentally in Hitler mind as well as physically. However, there was a transition between stanza seven and eleven from gaining hope of their presence back to losing it. “Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors, / A thousand windows and a thousand doors” (35-36).
The author uses the repetition of a word “thousand” to emphasize a building with a lot of spaces inside. However, none of that space was for them. ” Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours. ” This bring to the point where the horror of non-existence in reality come into their dream. Even though, this dream reflect on the reality of The German Jews as they were getting denied by society, treated as if they are not exist bring them to think that even in a dream, there’s no place left. May be now, he have admit that he and other German Jews is disappearing until none of them actually exist.
While in the last sentence of stanza seven he still fight for his existence “but we are still alive, my dear, we are still alive. ” (12). The sadness, frustration and feeling of none-existence describe in the poem and how The German Jews were being treated remind me about the Holocaust, also known as the Shoah during World War ll. Hitler and the Nazis party created a program of systematic persecution. The aim of this organization is to get rid of all the Jews, bring them to extinction. This collaborate with the poem on how they were being treated as they are not exist and Hitler’s statement “they must die” (24).
Eventually, the Nazis built an organized method of killing. Six extermination center were establish for large scale murder by gas and body disposal. Approximately six million Jews include over one million children were killed in the Holocaust. They believed that Germans were racially superior and that the Jews were inferior and unworthy of life. During the era of the Holocaust, the Nazis also targeted other groups because of their perceived racial inferiority including Romani, Polish and communists. In 1933, the Jewish population stood at over nine million.
By 1945, close two out of every three European Jews had been killed as part of the “Final Solution”, the Nazi policy to murder the Jews of European. W. H Auden’s poem, “from Ten Song” is highly emotional, yet depressing, reflecting the terrible problems that the German Jews were facing at the time in their effort to find sanctuary from the Nazis. At the same time, the poem show how Jewish people were being treated unfairly and as if they do not exist. Work Cited Auden, W. H. “from Ten Song”. Reading The World. Ed. Rebecca Burke. lowa: Perfection Learning Corporation, 2012. 169
