Never again
Reading time: 4 min
Unite organiser and songwriter, Davy Kettles, has written a song, Maternal Instinct, to commemorate all those who died in the Nazi Holocaust. It’s a moving and soulful tribute – you can read the lyrics and listen to the song below.
He writes
The book Life and Fate by the famous Soviet war correspondent, Vasily Grossman, himself a Jew, was the inspiration for the song.
The lyrics speak for themselves and represent the characters and events in the book, with some poetic licence.
Maternal Instinct
She was a Doctor and a spinster, who had never had her body kissed from childhood.
She wore a yellow star, sown to her blue coat, as the rounded up the Jews.
When they put her on the transport, she found, huddled crying in the corner,
And as the train pulled out of Budapest, she knew she found a love she could not lose.
She held his hand and rubbed his hair, while gently swaying in the box cars rolling motion,
In the dark she heard the old man reassure his sobbing wife, “all will be well”
As a gipsy woman sang a sad lament for all the lost souls in the forest,
Little did they know their destination, on this train, was bound for hell.
Ash blows on the breeze, and quicklime fills the ground
Ash blows on the breeze and tumbles to the ground.
In the morning they were told to disembark at a Polish railway station.
As the guards called out for Doctors and for Surgeon’s, “to step forward and then stand”
As she started to advance, but was frozen to the spot by hesitation,
When she realised she could not take with her the love she’s holding by the hand.
Ash blows on the breeze, and quicklime fills the ground
Ash blows on the breeze and tumbles to the ground.
They were herded then like cattle to the shower rooms by growling dogs and demons.
As the door was slammed behind them, she scooped up the boy to shelter him from harm.
But as death it walked upon them, they were naked and defenceless in the dungeon.
The cruel realisation, no escape, and that their time was nearly done.
Ash blows on the breeze, and quicklime fills the ground
Ash blows on the breeze and tumbles to the ground.
As he crumbled in her hold, young Isaac died without a single tear or whimper.
He felt sheltered by her love, from the sights and sounds of terror, all around,
And the last thing that she felt, was the wonder of maternal inclination,
She was the mother to a child she never had, as the both tumbled to the ground.
And the last thing that she felt, was the wonder of maternal inclination,
She was the mother to a child she never had, as the both tumbled to the ground.
By Davy Kettyles
LISTEN TO DAVY’S SONG
TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT DAVY’S MUSIC
