Do not say— in the Nacht— that darkness is empty.
The serpentine tunnels remember. Granite remembers the ashen haze. Even the grey ash remembers the brutalist flame. The embers, exiled from a blazing sun, lie scattered like red poppies across stone graves, refusing silence, refusing erasure.
Do not say— in the Nacht— that the whispers died behind Stacheldraht.
Barbed wire is only Christ thorn; it cannot imprison breath. I hear the roaring wind that once carried the parables upward, thin as smoke, fierce as testimony. Shoah is not a word that finishes when spoken. It smoulders as it dissolves in grief. It circles back. It seeps into the skin. It slides from beneath doorways and spreads its tentacles from the floor to the ceiling. There is no escape. I walked through corridors of soot, my palms blackened with cinders, counting them like broken mitzvot. Here, the flesh is a holy parchment. Fire is a ruthless scribe. Somewhere a voice said, Shema Yisrael, not loudly, but with the stubborn intimacy of forgotten songs in the marrow. Prayer did not rise like thunder but like a flaming tongue. It rose like heat, and in the language of pain it became invisible, undeniable.
Do not say— in the Nacht— that God was absent.
Absence has a temperature. I felt it in the granite, cold as exile, yet beneath it something pulsed. Not the tyranny of a sun. Not spectacle. A hidden Or, folded into the ribcage of ruin. Warum? the air asked, sharp as a steel blade. Why the smoke? Why the numbers pressed into skin? Silence answered first. Then a whisper, almost ashamed of its tenderness: Ani imcha. I am with you. Not rescue. Not miracle. Just hope cupped inside catastrophe.
Do not say— in the Nacht— that the covenant burned to cinders.
Between ember and ash there survives a secret—a Nitzotz, a spark that refuses annihilation. Even in Khurbn, something binds itself again to heaven, barefoot, scorched, trembling. Darkness and light braided themselves together— Nacht und Licht— like fringes at the edge of a torn garment. The scream and the psalm, the smoke and the star. Intimacy is not always warmth; sometimes it is the refusal to let go while burning.
So, do not say— in the Nacht— that there is only night.
There is a prayer beneath the scream. There is light beneath the granite.
Glossary of Terms:
- Ani Imcha – I am with you.
- Khurbn – Destruction; catastrophe.
- Licht – Light (German).
- Mitzvot – Commandments; sacred obligations.
- Nacht – Night.
- Nitzotz – Spark.
- Or – Divine light.
- Shema Yisrael – “Hear, O Israel.”
- Shoah – Catastrophe; the Holocaust.
- Stacheldraht – Barbed wire.
- Warum – Why.
Notes
This conceptual piece unfolds as poetic prose that moves through historical darkness toward a meditation on intimacy in the face of annihilation. I have consciously woven German and Hebrew, not as ornament, but as part of a lifelong fascination with world religions, especially Judaism. The mysticism of Kabbalah and the ethical call of ‘Tikkun Olam’ have nurtured in me a quiet sense of belonging. During my time in New York, I encountered the living spirit of Jewish generosity and solidarity, the instinct to give, to repair, to stand beside another in moments of need, and this experience left a profound and enduring impression on me. My poetic imagination has also been shaped by voices that confronted history with moral courage and spiritual depth. The work of Yehuda Amichai, with its intimate blending of the sacred and the everyday, has been a source of inspiration. The philosophical resilience of Viktor Frankl and the moral witness of Elie Wiesel, especially his insistence that memory must remain alive against the forces of forgetting, have deeply influenced the emotional and ethical landscape of this piece.
My love for the poetry of Hermann Hesse and Rainer Maria Rilke first drew me toward the German language. In trying to understand their work beyond translation, I began discovering the resonance and music of the original words themselves. Rilke’s lines have often stayed with me like quiet guidance: “Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.” As a poet from India, I have long felt that English possesses a rare capacity to hold other languages within its embrace. Writing in English allows me to reach across geographies and sensibilities, and this has become central to my poetic practice: to allow languages to meet, echo, and illuminate one another within the same imaginative space.
Within this work, fragile relational bonds— between human and human, human and God, and human and earth— are explored through imagery, metaphor, and symbol. Even when ecosystems appear obliterated, they retain within them the latent spark of regeneration. In this sense, intimacy becomes an ethical responsibility: a way of tending to a wounded earth. ‘Do Not Say—in the Nacht’ thus emerges as an ecological and spiritual refrain, an urgent cry that insists we must not declare extinction final, must not normalize devastation, must not grow numb before suffering. Shoah, in this sense, is not invoked only as an abyss of history but as a warning: when we sever our covenant with the divine, or with the goodness that resides within us, we enter Nacht, a condition of absolute darkness.
About the Author
J. Mann is a writer, poet, and educator whose literary journey began with the publication of her first poetry collection, Monsoon Showers, by Writers Workshop, Calcutta in 2010. Over the years, Mann has authored eleven poetry collections, a collection of short stories, and three novels. Her writing has appeared in publications such as The Brown Critique, The Berlin Review, Thought Catalog, Sage, and Muse India, among others. Connect with her at: www.jaspreetmann.com https://www.instagram.com/j.mann_author/
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