der böse Mann
By: Claire Sullivan

Did hiding make a bad man good?
For he made a home in a foreign land.
“A good man!” they yelled as the loved ones should.

​He kept his empty smile as best he could
As cameras flashed and exposed his hushed schande.
Did hiding make a bad man good?

They brought him back to the crimes of boyhood,
Now aged, sagging, lying with withered hands.
“A good man!” they yelled as the loved ones should.

Between two guards, he sat silent like wood,
While survivors relived it on the stand.
Did hiding make a bad man good?

“You lit the match and claimed their childhoods!
You stole their lives and turned their bones to sand!”
“A good man?” they yelled as the loved ones should.

He remained unfazed; life full of falsehood.
His vile life as price, for then it was planned.
Did hiding make a bad man good?“
​A bad man!” they yelled as the loved ones should.

Poetry

Claire Sullivan of Regina High School wrote to the editors that "the subject of this poem stems from a documentary I watched about the trial of John Demjanjuk, a man accused of being a notoriously brutal Nazi death camp guard called Ivan the Terrible by the prisoners. This trial took place 40+ years after the end of World War II."