Song of Redemptiom

My little daugther, my first one, Lorotschka / Probably would have been a grandmother by now. / Yet for all time she remains a little child - / One out of the bloody number of six million / It sometimes seems to me in the silence of a sleepless night / I hear moaning, I hear weeping, a child is screaming / This moaning, this weeping penetrates to the depths of my consciousness, / Although the years pass, the feeling and the shivering do not diminish. / That mortal enemy, that common criminal wanted / To wipe out children’s laughter in my people / That lunatic wanted to chop the thread that links generation to generation, / To burn it so that only ash remained. / But the thread will not be severed. Oh, no, / I am leaving a deep imprint on this earth. / The madman with this crazy ideas rotted away long ago. / My children will have grandchildren. / My descendents grow with every passing day - / My levely, beautiful Elena. / Like flowers in the spring / Marinushka and Ilya have come into bloom. / The sky will be bright and blue. / There will be weeding celebrations – weedings of the young and weeding anniversaires of the old. / And my grandchildren will become grandmothers and grandfathers. / So let the music play – the great march of Victory! / Nobody, never, in the whole wide world / Should ever dare besmirch the sanctity of childhood. / On the whole earthly, living, human planet - / Grant / Peace and happiness, / Peace and happiness – to the children / ... So that the horror never is repeated - / I sing this my song of redemption.

Matvey (Mordechal) Kaplan, Abril – Mayo 1984
Memorial de las Víctimas del Holocausto, Berlín.

Aunque estamos acostumbrados a que nos planteen los conflictos bélicos en términos de buenos y malos, lo cierto es que la única dicotomía aceptable es la de agresores-víctimas. En el primer grupo se incluyen las partes contendientes (es decir, aquellos que participan activamente en la lucha) y en el segundo está el resto de la población, cuya única función es padecer el horror y la brutalidad que se deriva de toda guerra.

Como en la canción, después de un episodio de violencia desgarradora la opinión general suele pedir que jamás vuelva a ocurrir nada parecido.

Desgraciadamente, con bastante frecuencia aquéllos que una vez fueron víctimas con el tiempo se vuelven agresores y olvidan por completo su anterior condición; al menos hasta el momento en que les toca ser víctimas de nuevo.