blood. A corpse which a mighty force had impaled [10] with a burning beam. A big piece of charred wood sticks out through the stomach and chest. And the clothes and the body are charred, too. Only the face, which is looking to the heavens, as if crying out for vengeance and punishment, is intact. It is blind because its eye sockets and mouth are covered with a black mass—blood. The dried blood has filled all the pockets, all the creases and wrinkles in the face.
Dante7 is dead and he will not rise from the dead, but if he were alive, even he would be unable to render or depict these thousands of corpses—of people, horses, and buildings lying motionless, naked, uncovered, and terrifying in their mute accusation. They all seem to be imploring the Earth and sky with one and the same question:
Why? In the name of what? By what right?
All Saints’ Day came.8 Hundreds and thousands of candles were burning on every square, on every unpaved spot, along the sidewalks, on the streets, and in the ruins of buildings.
[11] Thousands of people were intoning: “For the soul of . . .”
But nobody lit candles for the corpses of the buildings. Silent and motionless, their skeletons stood empty and torn apart all the way down to their basements, exposing their red, gaping wounds, from which wires along with power, gas, and water mains were spilling out like intestines or veins.
And then a strange, if not a miraculous, paradoxical thing happened! Snow fell. And it was white! Over so many corpses and so many rivulets of hot, red blood, white snow now fell. Such is the work of Mother Nature. So it has to be. Such is the law.
Łomża, 17 October 1939
17 Ocober 1939 “. . . Several hundred people were killed during the shelling of the city. Including Rachela . . .”
“Yours. . R.”9
