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He could hear the key in the lock
Kept his head down low
In truth he hardly ever raised it in the class
He couldn't look in those eyes or the eyes of the other
children
The teacher began to read the Rassenkunde
He knew he was bad
He was a thief, a liar, his head was the wrong shape
His ear lobes were strange
A twelve-year-old boy, staring at his desk.
Having decided to accept the invitation
Baruch Ron stood in Wilhelm-Koch-Strasse in shock
It had taken courage, in his seventy-third year
To travel thousands of miles, back
For he was the boy
Wilhelm Koch was that teacher
It was November 1996 in Adelsdorf.
Wilhelm Koch, Nazi Party Member No: 2188439
From the first day of May 1933
That being the earliest possible opportunity
Un-elected Bürgermeister of Adelsdorf
Relentless anti-semite and persecutor
Accuser and prosecutor of mixed-race sexual activity
Signatory, with relish, to each new discriminatory law
Never dirtying his own hands
A murderer by default
When petitioned to change the street name
That commemorated such a man
Adelsdorf Council refused
Saying Wilhelm Koch had reformed the local choir
On 11th September 1997 a silent candlelit march
To bring light into the darkness of the past
Fifty-five years after the Koch endorsed deportations
Thirty people gathered to remember the innocent dead
A crowd of four hundred Adelsdorfers arrived to disrupt
To hurl rascist abuse, to physically attack
To undermine this heartfelt rememberance
On route from the old Shul to the Bahnhof
Police arrested and charged several local residents
WDR filmed the whole event
Adelsdorf Council, still dominated by Wilhelm Koch sympathisers
He who had so improved the town
With Aryan dwellings in which they still live
Who by being leader of the local Nazi Party
Had saved them from the Nazis
When asked to contribute towards a Jewish Memorial
Proffered the princely sum of one thousand marks
Asked for a receipt
But when faced with television exposure
National and international condemnation for their fascist stance
Gradually and grudgingly capitulated
Agreed to change the name of the street
It's the fourteenth day of Cheshvan 5761
Standing in Adelsdorf
I pray for those re-settled in the deathcamps of Poland
Walking slowly down Rosenstrasse
Noticing the neat mid-thirties houses
In which I would not have qualified to live
I see one or two elderly residents out in their gardens
And remembering the words of Jesus
I ask God to forgive those who, even now
Cannot distinguish right from wrong
By fortune straying down a small, almost cul-de-sac drive
I come upon a Magen David set in cobble
A small stone draped in black
I lower my head to pray for the lost soul of Wilhelm Koch
But find myself unable |