"Out of the Ashes"
A tribute to the victims and the liberators
In silence stood the watchtowers high,
Beneath the grey and bitter sky,
Where echoes weep through barbed despair,
And ghosts still linger in the air.
A world unhinged, where hatred grew,
Where names were stripped, and numbers drew
A line through life, through faith and flame—
Each soul reduced, but not to shame.
For in those camps where night held sway,
Where dawn forgot to light the day,
Where mothers sang through trembling breath,
And children dreamed in beds of death—
Even there, amid the frost,
Where innocence and hope were lost,
The human spirit, pale but proud,
Would not be broken, not allowed.
And then one day, the silence broke,
With boots in snow and freedom’s smoke—
The gates swung wide on rusted pain,
And light crept in through walls of stain.
The liberators, faces worn,
Met hollow eyes, both numb and torn.
No words could meet the moment’s weight,
Too late, too late… and yet, not hate.
Instead, they wrapped the starved in arms,
Undid the years of cruel harms.
And bore the truth for all to see—
The price of unchecked tyranny.
We must remember, must retell,
The smoke, the ash, the toll, the hell.
But also sing of those who came,
With mercy’s torch, through war and flame.
To honour those who died unknown,
To keep the seeds of justice sown—
And vow, through every year anew,
That never again means always true.
