Elżbieta Popowska, imprisoned in Majadanek then in Ravensbruck on February 28, 1943. Nazi German authorities sent her to Bergen Belsen concentration camp, where she wrote her most famous poems.
A Siren We stand every morning long before dawn, the irreconcilable crowd, many thousands' horde. "Blocks" stand next to each other, at rollcall, Forming quadrilaterals in compact rows. Older women and in their prime girls, Crowds bizarrely coloured, gloomy and gray, Medium, young and even underage children. Time flies and flies Endlessly, as they stand by. Night turns into morning, Morning into a white day. Motionless like curved rocks, They stand, Like enchanted trees or living stones. Who will undo that charm? Who will restore, Them to full life? A siren, not the one from a fairy tale Sitting on a rock whose golden hair Is combed by the seaside winds, And not the one that entices Somewhere in the distance. A camp siren, full of tenacity of evil menace a terrible sound It is welcomed as a lifeline. Ravensbrück, 1943