When the Germans came,
they dragged me out of hiding with my mother,
Escorted with the sound of machine guns around us
We were marched to the market square
And as the masses stood,
I smelled the smoke,
I watched my city burn,
My helpless despair floating up into the sky
With the ashes.
I let myself be herded
With everyone else
To a churchyard
And stood there for the night,
hollow
In the muffled morning light
When they separated the Jews
The soldiers let us go home.
What home.
My mother and I
Found scorched foundations
Where our house stood.
Just yesterday.
Grateful for a small miracle,
We took the surviving piglets,
And started walking.
Fly filled soup
Now tasted so good.
The image of Jewish men,
In lines down the road,
Who were digging in the ditches
Who were making their own graves
Is forever in my mind.
And we walked
Until we came to the farm
But sometimes when I stand still
I remember.
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