Margaret Menamin

The Bombing Of Breskens, 1944-45

For Jenny Elmore (Janneke)

1

The Tunnel

Janneke’s Story

Because our little dorp was on the Schelde,
main waterway to Antwerp, we were cursed
with perilous importance. Ours were worst
of Holland’s losses, ours the air that smelled
of burning bodies as the allies shelled
our suspect streets. Our families were first
to take the “liberating” bombs that burst
inside the churches where our hope had held.

We dug a hasty tunnel lined with straw
and, buried under graves of our new dead
in claustrophobic dark, solicited
the mercy of a God we never saw.
They didn’t bomb the cemetery. Odd,
it was the dead who saved our lives, not God.

2

The Runner

Philip’s Story

My father, working for the underground,
offered me up as sacrifice — or, rather,
tried to believe the Nazis wouldn’t bother
to search a child for messages. So, bound
by crisis and obedience, I found
my way through night-black streets somehow or other,
running from bullets, being good for Father
who needed someone small and fast and sound.

I still have nightmares. When I try to run
my feet are bolted to the cobblestones.
I stumble over paratroopers’ bones.
I hear a growling “Halt!” and face a gun.
I never found a path that led to joy,
but I was a good boy, such a good boy.

3

The Bucket

Mieke’s Story

We set the stinking bucket by the door,
away from where we slept. We didn’t dare
go out to free our lungs of poison air,
not with the cellar shaking from the roar
of bombs that dropped like falling worlds and tore
great craters in the street. I couldn’t bear
to use the bucket; someone forced me there,
and then it overflowed across the floor.

When I stood up I saw the soldier’s feet,
his upraised hand, before he slipped and fell.
I screamed out “burgers!”* and he heard me yell,
twisted and threw the missile in the street.
What’s not worth shit? There is no thing on earth
but has some value, some intrinsic worth.

4

The Hand

Annie’s Story

We teased the stern Gestapo, climbed inside
their horse-drawn carriages. My childhood friend
and I would take our dolls there to pretend
that we were having a verboten ride
and they would chase us out. “Raus, raus!” they cried.
In those last days we didn’t comprehend
that it was not the Germans, in the end,
but the Canadians from whom we’d hide.

Bent double in a corner, with my fist
pressed to my mouth, I saw him pull the pin
on the grenade and blindly throw it in.
I couldn’t put my hand back on my wrist.
Through all these years, my absent fingers burn
and search for me and struggle to return.

5

The Windmill

Lies’s Story

My father and my brother went at night
out of the house and slipped across the field,
wary of shadows, watching for concealed
Gestapo and, without a trace of light,
entered the windmill creeping, keeping low.
There in the dark, sometimes all night, they hovered
over the pile of molding rags that covered
our secret — the forbidden radio.

Did they go mad with freedom when they heard
the Allies held the village, boy and man
breaching the blinding morning as they ran
to bring the rest of us the longed-for word?
We never knew. They never made a sound
before retreating Nazis shot them down.

*civilians

Companion Piece

In 1944-45 little Janneke Geluk saw her town bombed by Canadian soldiers who had to keep the Germans from reaching Belgium via the River Schelde. In later years, Janneke came to the U.S. where she became Jenny Elmore and where I met her in the 1980s. These sonnets tell of things she and her neighbors experienced during that bombing.