JEWS

In the dark street outside

there is no place to hide,

as the clock in the hall strikes two.

The screams and the shouts

and the running about

are all to familiar, it's nothing new.

But tonight I’m not free,

because they’re coming for me.

Its my door they’re smashing. I’m a Jew.

Into cattle trucks we’re crowded,

as harsh orders are shouted,

I seek the face of a friend or relation.

But none do I find

with all hope left behind,

as we arrive at the railway station.

We’re forced into boxcars,

two hundred or more yellow stars,

beaten and clubbed without hesitation.

The train speeds through the night,

under the moon cold and bright,

and some elderly die where they stand;

of wounds and blows and kicks,

from  rifles and boots and sticks;

delivered with glee by a gloved Nazi hand.

The train stops with a jerk,

at a gate reading "Freedom through Work"

and we’re greeted with Bach, from a classical band.

More gruff orders are barked

as from the train we debark,

and formed into lines, one left and one right.

There’s a terrible stench,

from which mind and body both flinch,

and black smoke hides the sun so bright.

The line with the sick, the old, the weak,

the young, the crippled, the mild and the meek,

are forced through steel doors, into God’s eternal light.

For those who are gassed,

the horror is passed;

for the rest of us, only slavery and starvation.

For millions have cried,

and millions have died,

when life was denied the Jewish nation.

And Auschwitz stands,

built by our own hands,

in the sight of God, an abomination.

Michael D. David

March 15, 1993

    This poem was published in the news letter of the Holocaust Center of Dallas.