I read IT's response with some surprise, as my take was that the narrator was not of the camp but one who watched as others went that way. Further readings of the poem led me to think that, okay, IT has a point: how does this person know that this or that happened without having experienced the camp personally. It seems that Mary Ann has cleared that up, at least for me.

As for the troubling issue of Luther's incantation regarding the law and Inkbarrow's further elucidation of its origin, I am reminded from long ago studies in psychology and sociology that one of the most troubling aspects of the holocaust, beyond the apparent acquiesence of the victims to deprivation and death was the willingness of those who perpetrated the crimes, not the Hitlers and the Eichmans and the Mengles (sp?), but the 'gentleman officers' and the foot soldiers and the clerks and the like, to do as ordered, en masse.

It seems to me that the purpose of the poet, beyond reminding us of the holocaust and its reality, a worthy effort in its own right, is to tell us that the ghost who is the young, innocent and frail subject will visit us at our tables. It is not that the ghost will visit the narrator or the poet: that happens already. It is that the ghost will visit us, the readers.

The question is whether he visits us to remind us of what we must prevent, or as the icon of what we forgot and have since allowed to recur. That is to say, are we capable of rising above the law to morality, or are we insistent on obeying.

Take care,

Joe