Marianne Baum: Written between 1939-1946
The Baum GRUPPE
Act, do something, we told ourselves
and each other. And so we did—
our small group infiltrated factories,
organized slave laborers, wrote
pamphlets, dropped them on buses,
slipped out at night with buckets
of paint, brushes, left our mark.
So little, but we had to do something.
h en the anti-Soviet exhibit.
Goebbels’ silliness to distract
from war losses, food shortages,
the freezing winter. It was not
difficult. We went, set explosives
here and there at the Lustgarten.
A match. Up it went. For a night,
Flames danced with our resistance.
So little, but we had to do something.
they hunted us. Retaliation everywhere.
Then the Sondergericht—‘special court.’
They carried me there, my shattered legs
dangling. No one talked. A hundred
Berliners rounded up for each of us.
Five hundred—most shot there and then;
the rest, slower deaths at Sachsenhausen.
This, too, our burden, but . . . would they
have died anyway? You must understand.
We had to do something.