Gray Pansies

Lindsay McBride

composed from the eyewitness testimony of Olga Kovacs the only flowers in Auschwitz lay side by side on the way to the disrobing and gas chambers. a glimpse of hope, to some? proof of survival, of strength, of serenity: but Auschwitz was no stranger to ill-fated irony and twisted humor. were the pansies a cruel mockery? another euphemism and cover-up? a symbol of the backwards beauty the Nazis found in death. regardless: the pansies, in their serene life, may have offered solace to those facing the worst of it. the flowers, as an entry point, flourished because the humans exhaled. the humans of Auschwitz cannot again be nouns, forgotten has-beens or unknowns: even covered in the awful remnants of being, the blossoms remained upright.

Zyklon may exterminate insect pests. but it cannot exterminate the spirit of Olga Kovacs, or Santa Pelham, or the millions of other stories that transcend time’s fleeting grasp.