The burned farm at Radovna

I came across it half-hidden by snow
one sunlit winter evening
so peaceful that one could not hope to know
of horrors that once passed there.

But curiosity being what it is, I stopped
hoping to find out more, and when I did
I almost wish I hadn’t,
for now I cannot un-learn what I learned there.

The ruined Smolej farmhouse, sole remnant
of this small hamlet, nestled in a valley far from sight
atrocities well-hidden where
I read the legend in the waning light:

‘In retaliation for a partisan attack
on a group of German soldiers one week earlier
the Germans burned down the houses
and the outbuildings of Srednja Radovna.’

24 innocent villagers killed, trapped in the burning buildings
the youngest a seven-month-old child
the oldest an 81-year-old woman.
I wonder who survived to tell their tale?

‘The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep‘
beneath the snow and eighty-year-old ash
I cannot break their slumber,
nor un-remember tales of horrors past.

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