Übersetzung: Derek Donaldson
Evacuation of the workers of Chernobyl by the local Party Organisation as from 27.4 1986
We heard: 90, 000 able-bodied people
were evacuated under the direction of the Government,
but much too slowly and much too late,
from Chernobyl and the country around.
Earlier, one had seen again and again scared men and women
in their work - clothes, sensing
that protective clothing did not protect; their fear,
a product of half - knowledge and disinformation,
producing uncertainty.
For, all the dangers
(the devastating results of radio - activity)
were played down. In embroidering
deliberately false information, no effort had been spared.
Everything was done
to disguise the catastrophe.
Carefully prepared, the publicity ran
at full speed: for severe orderers
the very best.
When the twelvehundred buses finally arrived, thousands streamed
out in huge hordes; their faces,
men, women, and children, old people too,
turned away in fear; for the radiation,
it was now admitted, would be rather dangerous.
Those who boarded the vehicles,
were immediately pushed to the back, as
people fought for the front seats. At each stop
children were thrust in. They cried for their mothers.
But the officials
seperated them from their parents. Later, so they said,
everyone would come together again.
Now, each was concerned
about radio - activity, and inspected
the floor, windows, and seats, examined suspiciously
the materials of the walls. All the time,
men and women pointed - uncertain whether they would see them again -
at the places, where they had worked. By this time, it all carried
the fearful mark of the catastrophe.
Every face was easily visible
for the burning reactor gave out much light,
more than in any night I have ever seen.
Not one metre was unlit.
And all this
happened in a split second and was of such a terrible extent,
unlike any previous disaster in the world. And no
other disaster in the world had such a universal fall - out.
Indeed, it witnessed the tragedy
which no predecessor in any town of any time
had ever seen: the Soviet system completely helpless.
When had this ever happened, that the fruit of their labour
became their doom for those who had worked to produce it.
When ever
had so many people been driven from the building
which they had erected?
When we saw them travel in their buses
fleeing from the work of their own hands, we asked quietly,
" is this, then, the big picture, which the deeply moved classic authors
once foresaw"?
(Nachdichtung: Derek Donaldson, 2009)
|
