The Rag Doll

For the forgotten German civilian dead of World War Two.





The Rag Doll.



She laid there, still beautiful but broken,
Not a piece of meat but a young woman,
Who laughed and loved,
Who lived and dreamed,
Her legs had been held wide open,
Her dress torn and her breasts exposed,
How many had raped her I could not tell,
A dozen, twenty, fifty who knows,
That had queued to take their turn,
Upon the rag doll with a gag in its mouth,
She had been crushed by their thrusts,
And when they had finished and fled
She died slowly, bleeding on the straw,
That had been their mocking bed.



I thought of Christ upon his rough cross,
And of the suffering of innocence,
The plight of the forgotten millions,
Buried in secret in the hidden hollows,
Of city streets, human hearts and history,
Only now unearthed to scream their pain,
She had not worn the uniforms of the enemy,
Nor ran the camps that excused your crimes,
She was just a little girl,
Who skipped and run,
Who never held a gun,
But you killed her for your pleasures,
Then made heroes of her killers,
This is the victory you are taught to praise,
The shame the guilty will take to their graves.