Matthew McKinnon 1/29/14 What first brought my attention to this piece was the name, Anthem for Doomed

Youth. I, as a teenager, am always interested to hear a piece of literature about the youth in a culture. Normally they are tales of rebellion and youthful debauchery, which I almost always thoroughly enjoy. This poem did not fit such stereotypes. It left me with an overwhelming feeling of gloom, and sympathy for the lost lives of which Owen was speaking. The final line, And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds. leaves me with the impression of an unjustly oppressed, and fearful people. They draw their blinds in fear of what may happen outside. It reminds me of the Holocaust to some extent. The poem speaks of how there are no voices of mourning for these dead. Only the songs of demented choirs of wailing (bullet) shells lament their passing. It speaks of how there are no passing funeral bells for those who die as cattle, giving the thought that those who were being killed, were being killed in great number, just like in a slaughterhouse where many cows are brought to their tragic fates. The Holocaust is similar to this in its cruelty, inhumanity, and in the bringing about of mass death. As an exchange student this summer in Germany, I visited the Dachau concentration camp; one of the most infamous camps out of the many that so plagued the landscape of Germany. As an English student we had often read books of the ruthless torture, and hate that filled these camps. It is one thing to read about it, but it is another to see where these events actually happened. That visit left me scarred, my eyes like those of Judas Iscariot after he forsook his Savior, Jesus of Nazareth. I was in complete disgust, and awe of the betrayal and crime against humanity that was laid out right in front of me. While this poem would correspond more with the early ghetto phase of the Holocaust, the pain and death that encompasses it cannot help but remind me of the tortured innocence that took place in the genocide as a whole.