Tale of a Sprinter, in the Winter of 1938
by Sudeep Pagedar
THE PAST -
I am an athlete from Berlin,
my feet are fast and swift.
I can run faster than anyone!
Truly, this is the Lord's gift!
Any race I participate in,
I always come in first,
for I tell myself, "I HAVE to win";
it is like a great thirst.
Even if someone, somehow passes me,
I put on an extra burst of speed
and run past him, leaving him behind;
thus, I take the lead.
I once thought, "If I keep running this way,
I might be in the Olympics, some day..."
THE PRESENT -
But now the year is nineteen-thirty-eight
And for my dreams, it's just too late.
My running days are all gone,
I'm not going to see tomorrow's dawn.
Yes, it is true
that I can run very fast;
But it is also true
that I am a Jew...
There's no running, from the Holocaust
Frozen Jews
Avrom Sutzkever
July 10, 1944
Have you seen,
in fields of snow,
frozen Jews, row on row?
Blue marble forms lying, not breathing, not dying.
Somewhere a flicker of a frozen soul - glint of fish in an icy swell.
All brood. Speech and silence are one.
Night snow encases the sun.
A smile glows immobile from a rose lip's chill.
Baby and mother, side by side. Odd that her nipple's dried.
Fist, fixed in ice, of a naked old man: the power's undone in his hand.
I've sampled death in all guises. Nothing surprises.
Yet a frost in July in this heat - a crazy assault in the street.
I and blue carrion, face to face. Frozen Jews in a snowy space.
Marble shrouds my skin. Words ebb. Light grows thin.
I'm frozen, I'm rooted in place like the naked old man enfeebled by ice.
Holocaust
by Barbara Sonek
We played, we laughed
we were loved.
We were ripped from the arms of our
parents and thrown into the fire.
We were nothing more than children.
We had a future. We were going to be lawyers, rabbis, wives, teachers, mothers.
We had dreams, then we had no hope.
We were taken away in the dead of night like cattle in cars, no air to breathe smothering, crying, starving, dying. Separated from the world to be no more. From the ashes, hear our plea.
This atrocity to mankind cannot happen again.
Remember us, for we were the children whose dreams and lives were stolen away.
The Butterfly
By Pavel Friedman
The last, the very last,
So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow.
Perhaps if the sun's tears would sing
against a white stone. . . .
Such, such a yellow
Is carried lightly 'way up high.
It went away I'm sure because it wished to
kiss the world good-bye.
For seven weeks I've lived in here,
Penned up inside this ghetto.
But I have found what I love here.
The dandelions call to me
And the white chestnut branches in the court.
Only I never saw another butterfly.
That butterfly was the last one.
Butterflies don't live in here,
in the ghetto.
First They Came…
By Martin Niemoller
First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Catholic.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.
by Sudeep Pagedar
THE PAST -
I am an athlete from Berlin,
my feet are fast and swift.
I can run faster than anyone!
Truly, this is the Lord's gift!
Any race I participate in,
I always come in first,
for I tell myself, "I HAVE to win";
it is like a great thirst.
Even if someone, somehow passes me,
I put on an extra burst of speed
and run past him, leaving him behind;
thus, I take the lead.
I once thought, "If I keep running this way,
I might be in the Olympics, some day..."
THE PRESENT -
But now the year is nineteen-thirty-eight
And for my dreams, it's just too late.
My running days are all gone,
I'm not going to see tomorrow's dawn.
Yes, it is true
that I can run very fast;
But it is also true
that I am a Jew...
There's no running, from the Holocaust
Frozen Jews
Avrom Sutzkever
July 10, 1944
Have you seen,
in fields of snow,
frozen Jews, row on row?
Blue marble forms lying, not breathing, not dying.
Somewhere a flicker of a frozen soul - glint of fish in an icy swell.
All brood. Speech and silence are one.
Night snow encases the sun.
A smile glows immobile from a rose lip's chill.
Baby and mother, side by side. Odd that her nipple's dried.
Fist, fixed in ice, of a naked old man: the power's undone in his hand.
I've sampled death in all guises. Nothing surprises.
Yet a frost in July in this heat - a crazy assault in the street.
I and blue carrion, face to face. Frozen Jews in a snowy space.
Marble shrouds my skin. Words ebb. Light grows thin.
I'm frozen, I'm rooted in place like the naked old man enfeebled by ice.
Holocaust
by Barbara Sonek
We played, we laughed
we were loved.
We were ripped from the arms of our
parents and thrown into the fire.
We were nothing more than children.
We had a future. We were going to be lawyers, rabbis, wives, teachers, mothers.
We had dreams, then we had no hope.
We were taken away in the dead of night like cattle in cars, no air to breathe smothering, crying, starving, dying. Separated from the world to be no more. From the ashes, hear our plea.
This atrocity to mankind cannot happen again.
Remember us, for we were the children whose dreams and lives were stolen away.
The Butterfly
By Pavel Friedman
The last, the very last,
So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow.
Perhaps if the sun's tears would sing
against a white stone. . . .
Such, such a yellow
Is carried lightly 'way up high.
It went away I'm sure because it wished to
kiss the world good-bye.
For seven weeks I've lived in here,
Penned up inside this ghetto.
But I have found what I love here.
The dandelions call to me
And the white chestnut branches in the court.
Only I never saw another butterfly.
That butterfly was the last one.
Butterflies don't live in here,
in the ghetto.
First They Came…
By Martin Niemoller
First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Catholic.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.