Flygtninger... Refugees....

Jeg læser Elie Wiesels Night med en klasse og jeg bruger mange digte i vores lektion så eleverne kan lave forbindelser imellem Night og andre Holocaust litteratur. WH Auden skrev sit digt "Refugee Blues" før verden andenskrig og jeg tror at det er en provakativ besked om mennesker og hvor vi passer (eller passer ikke) hinanden... Diskussionen i klasser var meget interresant i tirsdags da vi analyserede digtet..... så meget at vi var skuffet da klassen blev slut. Jeg håber at WH Audens ord påvirker dig i den samme måde de påvirkede mig og 1Y.

I am reading Elie Wiesel's Night with one of my classes and in our lessons I am using quite a bit of poetry that asks the students to draw parallels between his memoir and other Holocaust literature. WH Auden wrote his poem "Refugee Blues" before WWII even began, and I truly believe it contains many provocative messages about people and how we treat one another.....Our class discussion on Tuesday as we analysed the poem was really interesting .....so much so that we were all quite disappointed when the class had to end.... I hope WH Auden's words affect you in the same way they affected me and my students in 1Y.

Refugee Blues Say this city has ten million souls, Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes: Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us. Once we had a country and we thought it fair, Look in the atlas and you'll find it there: We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now. In the village churchyard there grows an old yew, Every spring it blossoms anew: Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that. The consul banged the table and said, "If you've got no passport you're officially dead": But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive. Went to a committee; they offered me a chair; Asked me politely to return next year: But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day? Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said; "If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread": He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me. Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky; It was Hitler over Europe, saying, "They must die": O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind. Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin, Saw a door opened and a cat let in: But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews. Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay, Saw the fish swimming as if they were free: Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away. Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees; They had no politicians and sang at their ease: They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race. Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors, A thousand windows and a thousand doors: Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours. Stood on a great plain in the falling snow; Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro: Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me. WH Auden, 1939