battlefield Archieven - Sara's Stories

The Apocalypse

Four horseman stood before God’s creation
They cursed the sky for what they’d done
These men were under no obligation
But fought so He’d tell them they’d won

Conquest rode towards the Lord’s men
A steady stance as he’d been taught
They didn’t know when they’d be back again
And for what, if not peace, they fought

War cunningly outstretched his bony hand
To congratulate the human race
He greeted them all as a long lost friend
Bowing down with grace

The soldiers shook their head aside
Conquest nor War could make them stray
They all knew that once they died
God had in it all the final say

Famine marched as the victor already
For he’d seen the hunger in their eyes
They all wobbled on their feet, unsteady
Ignoring other’s pleading cries

Lastly came Death, dressed in army green
A sudden wave of sadness washed down
Most of these faces he’d already seen
And had ignored them with a frown

He knew that what he stood for
Was something recognizable to all
It was with the heavy name he bore
He choose which one would fall

The man were not startled as he joined in
They had all met Death once or twice
They greeted the horseman with a soft grin
For he’d unraveled God’s lies

Background information: The four horsemen of the apocalypse are four biblical figures who appear in the Book of Revelation. They are revealed by the unsealing of the first four of the seven seals. Each of the horsemen represents a different facet of the apocalypse: conquest, war, famine, and death.
In this poem each horseman talks to a group of soldiers, trying to sway them into joining their side in what they think to be the new apocalypse: the Second World War.

Basic Info

Hello there! My name is Sara Curfs, I’m a teenage writer who reads her poetry on the Second World War (all written by myself). I do so in the uniform of a nurse during this time period.

You can hire me to read at your events. Please message me through the email in “contact” and let me know the details! Know that I am based in the south of The Netherlands.

Here are some pictures to show what I do and how I look. They are all from the period 2019-2021

When Heaven Touches Hell

The book is now finally published and purchasable. When Heaven Touches Hell is a book with 40 beautiful poems accompanied by stunning photographs! The in total 75 pages high quality paper comes at a low price (shipping not included). At only 14 years old, Sara Curfs wrote a book with the most impressing poetry in a language not even hers. We are excited to share with you and everyone around the world: When Heaven Touches Hell. (Send a Message through the website to purchase the book)

The book costs €9,95 (euro’s!!!) without shipping.
Costs of the book in The Netherlands are €14,- INCLUDING DELIVERY

While sending an email to purchase the book, please inform us of your residence so we can calculate extra costs including shipping/transport.

The book will be delivered to you in an extra protective envelope to make sure it doesn’t get to you in any damaged way.

War’s VIP

Pure hate was all it took
To ensure his place in my history book
Written down on paper, white
He stands there with full delight

Children have to learn his curse
And what perhaps is even worse
Is that not many of them know
Where all the lost soldiers go

The Fuhrer, he made it to the end
Not strong enough to play pretend
As he puts that horrid gun on his head
While he joins his men in death

He got out through the backdoor
And I smile, for war is no more
But am I sure? I fear I’m not
A fake smile is all these men’ve got

He fell before he could’ve even met
The soldiers of war, which he had fed
He went out, knowing he didn’t win
A new era, he knew, would never begin

The news spreads, he took the easy way out
Some people are stillfilled with doubt
Because Adolf Hitler put a bullet
Through that mind in which demons crept

And there he is, chapter five
As we learn about those no longer alive
And those who chose his side
In the depths of Hell, they hide

The name of that one man
That’s a name everyone should recognize
And what about the name of all the soldiers?
Their hearts twice the size

Of the Fuhrer of the Fatherland

So why is it that we don’t learn about Theodore Miller, Ruth Haskell, Werner Goldberg but we do learn about Adolf Hitler, Jozef Goebbels, Herman Göring and Heinrich Himmler?

Only the important people, right?

About Me (From Book)

Hello! My name is Sara Curfs and I’m fourteen years old, or at least I was when I wrote these poems. I live in The Netherlands, go to a secondary school like every other teenager and I do re-enacting (which I realised sooner or later not many other teens do).

I’ve been writing ever since I can remember, behind a small and old wooden desk from my father and even tried writing English when I was around ten years old. I’m self-taught in the language and started truly writing English when I was twelve.

I’m quite a cheerful person, if I say so myself, I’m very spontaneous (sometimes a bit too much) and happy, overall. I wrote my first book, in Dutch, when I was very young, and it never came to be.

I went on my very first re-enactment event in September, 2018. I was so surprised and shocked but above all impressed of what I’ve seen, that I decided to write a story. A story turned into a poem, which turned into multiple poems, which escalated into a website and an own book.

And now we’re here.

I want to thank you for reading until the very end, hoping I’ve either warmed you at heart or made you feel any emotion whatsoever.

I never thought this would happen, my own book. It’s quite scary, isn’t it? Hopefully you enjoyed my poems, that’s all that matters.

When Heaven Touches Hell

When Heaven Touches Hell is my own book, which is filled with poems capturing different sides of war. So have we the medical side, talking about the field medics and nurses, or the side of the soldier himself, the dying and dead, or those who keep on fighting, the home front and front lines, all portrayed through poetry. With every poem comes a fitting re-enactment picture and explanation to the photograph below it. At the end of the book is an About Me which you can find above.

You can buy the book through my website in about 2,5 to 3 weeks. I’ll be sure to keep you posted and talk about the newest changes when it comes to the publishing of the book.

Some poems can be found on this website or on my instagram, which you can find on this page too.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JOOST RITZEN FROM ZIPS-FOTOGRAFIE

http://zipsfotografie.nl

Why One Fights

In this war, everyone has a different reason to fight, a person or idea they make themselves believe is worth hall this, this suffering, this never-ending fighting and this ever-lasting battle between two sides, which both don’t really want to do this.

You need something, someone, to keep you going. You need to have this dream, this vision of perfection you want to achieve, in order for you to get up in the morning and continue the life that has been so rudely taken from you all those years ago.

Some fight for freedom, a noble cause of course, the thought that everyone will be able to walk on these streets, Jew or not, male or female, they don’t care. Everyone has basic rights they wish to achieve, because what kind of world are we living in, when little kids can’t go to school just because of the star they’re forced to wear?

Some fight for loved ones. The man next to me? He’s writing a letter to his wife and children, every week. He’s fighting for them, he didn’t enlist for his family, but you can be damn sure they are always in his mind, gun or not, whether he is in a battle or not, it’ll always be his family.

The young kid, he’s fighting for honour and pride. Maybe not as noble as freedom, yet interesting to say the least. He feels like he owes his country this, a country which not too long ago, wasn’t even ours to begin with. He thinks this is what he should do.

Others fight for shelter and food, the money they get. They have seen hard times, lived through them, and they saw the perfect opportunity to have shelter, rations and a pay check. You should’ve seen their faces when they were sent to other countries.

Some fight because they expected it to be fun, to have all the ladies swirling around them, to have them look at him, while their panties drop and they fall on their knees before him. That didn’t go as planned either, as I bet you could’ve guessed already.

Me? Why I’m fighting? I’d love to say something heroic, something brave, something that would make you think that it was the best thing I ever did, enlist in the army. But to be fair, I did it because I saw everyone who already enlisted look so honourable and shiny in their green suits, I was jealous. That’s a reason too, envy.

I know it sounds stupid, that I envied them. But all the reason’s above, they didn’t apply to me. I didn’t feel the need to bring freedom, because I didn’t expect myself to be able to. I didn’t have anyone I loved, except my mother, honour and pride had left me a long time ago, the shelter and food, the money, they didn’t draw me in. I was used to living without much gold and glitter, I didn’t do it for the ladies. I did it because of the most stupid reason anyone’s ever heard.

If I look back at myself, I swear to God I would hit myself so hard I’d fall through the ground and straight into Hell, where I belong. I was foolish to think the war was just another stupid decision that might work in my favour.

It didn’t.

The photograph shows the original Band of Brothers: Easy Company, US 101st Airborne Division. There have been multiple books written by the man that served in Easy Company and a short series (partly) directed by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg

Peace?

He looked at what was left of the war
No Man’s Land silent at last
Feeling guilty of the clothes he wore
There was just one thing he asked

He asked God up in the sky
Just for five minutes or less,
“Protect me so I don’t die,
Still wearing my army dress.”

Some parties they agreed
Not to fire a single round
Another dead, there was no need
For even more bodies in the ground

Other soldiers they did not
Believe that war was gone
Their firearm still burning hot
To death they were drawn

Few didn’t keep in mind
On their muddy watch, still going
11 o’clock is to be defined
As peace for the unknowing

Seconds before the church bell yells
That peace has finally been ensured
A dozen stories no one will tell
Of wounds that will never be cured

Have happened

Written down on marble white
At 5 AM Germany will write
Peace, between the nations
The roaring twenties crumbling foundations

And 6 hours later
The man on the field are told
War’s very own violator
Has finally been controlled.

But in that time too many will fall
Because of a last whistle being blown
Over No Man’s Land they crawl
For the didn’t know

This poem was based on the short film called END OF WAR- the final minutes of WWI. The “peace” was signed at 5AM, but the soldier didn’t know until 11AM, or couldn’t act on it until that time at least.

A Conversation With Death

I always thought of death as the enemy, this dark figure that would take your hand and never let it go, as he walks with you to the gates of Hell. He’d offer you to go to Heaven, because he already knew that’s what you’d pick, as he waits for you to make your choice, he says:

“You’re free to choose, son, so what’s it going to be?”
“You can either chose heaven or chose heavenly.”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” you’d tell him, at last
“Can I have some time to think,or do you need my answer fast?”

“I’ve got all the time in the world,” he’d smirk “so, don’t feel stressed.”
“Just chose whether you want to be worshiped,” he whispered “or blessed.”

“And all the other boys? Can you tell me what they chose?”
“Apologies,” he admitted “but I fear nobody knows.”

“So this is it? I have to pick one of the two, without knowing which holds whom?”
“For one might be my resting place and one may be my doom.”

The devil thought silently, before he muttered under his breath,
Perhaps he shouldn’t live to see what comes right after death?

“Rather I could take you home,” he offered, “if that is what you desire?”
And so the soldier turned his back to that heavenly angels choir

Took the devils hand, and together they walked back
To where the devil had before so ruthlessly attacked.

“Thank you,” the soldier spoke “for yet another day.”
“Don’t mind it, it’s what you deserved,” death would say

We All Fall

I know I’m human, like everyone else, and maybe it’s arrogant of me to say this, but I never expected to get shot. Perhaps the red cross on my arm made me feel safe or was it the unrealistic dream that people knew they weren’t supposed to take me down. I was a medic after all.

Is this what they felt? All the people I’ve helped before, as they lay crippled in the sand, seconds before it’d swallow them whole? This burning ache in their chest, which wouldn’t stop, no matter how hard they screamed, no matter how many prayers they spoke, this was their reality.

My reality.

I think it’s fair to say that I was in pain. I had never understood it, not completely. I had seen people cry out loud for their mother as the torturer stripped them from their breath, and now that he marvelled over me, I couldn’t hold back my grunting.

It was almost funny. It could’ve been a joke, would’ve been a joke if it wasn’t myself laying there. Running towards me, silent but swift, was a medic.

A medic who came to help another medic.

I told you it could’ve been a joke. And I would’ve laughed, if it hadn’t been for the devil who send acid through my veins. My face flashed in horror and pain, the expression I had seen often enough to know what it looked like.

Was this revenge? From all those I couldn’t save, to make sure I’d respect them more? Because if it was, it worked.

Their history had become my own. Their yesterday my reality. And I’d make sure their tomorrow, would be my today.

The short story was based on the picture above, of a medic being helped by another medic during D-Day.