Recently, I did a project on the Holocaust in school, and I chance upon these poems written by survivors there.
The Holocaust was conducted by Germany(Hitler) and it was the Genocide of Jews.
Almost all of the Jews suffered at the hands of discrimination and prejudice.
Many were killed in gas chambers by the THOUSANDS
Out of the 15,000 children that passed through the Holocaust, only 100 over survived.\
Let me share one of the poems, written by a kid by the name of Pavel Friedmann
The Butterfly
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 goodbye. For seven weeks I've lived in here, Penned up inside this ghetto But I have found my people here. The dandelions call to me And the white chestnut candles in the court. Only I never saw another butterfly. That butterfly was the last one. Butterflies don't live in here, In the ghetto.
There are many others like these two, telling the tales of the disastrous Holocaust.
Homesick
I've lived in the ghetto here more than a year, In Terezín, in the black town now, And when I remember my old home so dear, I can love it more than I did, somehow. Ah, home, home, Why did they tear me away? Here the weak die easy as a feather And when they die, they die forever. I'd like to go back home again, It makes me think of sweet spring flowers. Before, when I used to live at home, It never seemed so dear and fair. I remember now those golden days… But maybe I'll be going there again soon. People walk along the street, You see at once on each you meet That there's a ghetto here, A place of evil and of fear. There's little to eat and much to want, Where bit by bit, it's horror to live. But no one must give up! The world turns and times change. Yet we all hope the time will come When we'll go home again. Now I know how dear it is And often I remember it.
9.3.1943. Anonymous
Fear
Today the ghetto knows a different fear, Close in its grip, Death wields an icy scythe. An evil sickness spreads a terror in its wake, The victims of its shadow weep and writhe. Today a father's heartbeat tells his fright And mothers bend their heads into their hands. Now children choke and die with typhus here, A bitter tax is taken from their bands. My heart still beats inside my breast While friends depart for other worlds. Perhaps it's better – who can say? – Than watching this, to die today? No, no, my God, we want to live! Not watch our numbers melt away. We want to have a better world, We want to work – we must not die!
Eva Picková, 12 years old, Nymburk
We must hope that these disastrous and costly discrimination must NEVER happen again.
In our world of peace we must treasure it, and protect it.
Thank you.
