This poem was found in the concentration camp Ravensbrück after the liberation, written on a piece of packing paper, author unknown.
Prayer for the Tormentors
Peace to those of bad will and an end to revenge and all talk of punishment and chastise. The cruelties mock all that has ever been -- crossing the boundaries of human understanding and the martyrs are manifold.
Therefore, O God, don’t weigh their suffering on the scales of justice,
Don’t demand dreadful retribution, rather
let them approach with all executioners, traitors and spies
and with all bad people
and forgive them
for the sake of the courage
and soul strength of the others...
....for all that is good should count
and not the evil
and in remembering our enemies we should not continue life as their victims,
not as nightmare and ghosts
Rather come to their help so they can
remove themselves from their madness.
This alone is asked of them,
and that we, when all is over
may live as humans among humans
And that, once again, there may be
peace on this poor earth for people of good will and that this peace may also come to those others.
Gebet fuer die Peiniger
Friede den Menschen, die bösen Willens sind,
und ein Ende aller Rache und allen Redens
über Strafe und Züchtigung.
Die Grausamkeiten spotten alles je Dagewesenen,
sie überschreiten die Grenzen menschlichen Begreifens, und zahlreich sind die Märtyrer.
Daher, o Gott, wäge nicht ihre Leiden Auf den Schalen deiner Gerechtigkeit, fordere nicht grausame Abrechnung, sondern lasse sie zukommen allen Henkern Verrätern und Spionen und allen schlechten Menschen,
und vergib ihnen um des Mutes
und der Seelenkraft der anderen willen .....
...... all das Gute sollte zählen, nicht das Böse und in der Erinnerung unserer Feinde
sollten wir nicht als ihre Opfer weiterleben, nicht als Alptraum und Gespenster
vielmehr ihnen zur Hilfe kommen, damit sie Abstehen können von ihrem Wahn.
Nur dies allein wird ihnen abgefordert,
und dass wir, wenn alles vorbei sein wird,
leben dürfen als Menschen unter Menschen,
und dass wieder Friede sein möge auf dieser
armen Erde den Menschen, die guten Willens sind, und dass dieser Friede auch zu den anderen komme.
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...and when it's all over, the mass madness, the delight in roaring crowds, the flag waving; when this illness of our age, pretending that base instincts are good and battles for radical conservatism necessary, is gone, then one day someone will make an earth shaking discovery. They will discover the individual human being. They will say: Everything depends on individuals. The question will be: are they happy, and the goal: are they free. Groups will be secondary. The State will be secondary. Important will be not that the State lives, but that the human being lives...People will cheer and say: 'how novel! What courage! We never heard that before! Books will be written, not by that first person but by his successors because the first is always stupid. And the result will be that thousands of banners and brown, red, and blue shirts will be thrown in the trash and people will start to have courage and believe in themselves without fear of the State, before which they previously grovelled like beaten dogs...
--written by the German author Kurt Tucholsky in 1931
