FOR ME THE HOLOCAUST
STARTED IN ’33
IN A SMALL VILLAGE
I was in a class
and the teacher said
I hear we have
a Jew pig in this class.
I shook. He said
I’m going to show
this Jew pig
how much pain
a Jew can survive.
He took a stick
out of the desk
and hit and hit.
I don’t remember the pain,
but only the kids
who’d once been my friends
laughing and laughing.
ON THE WAY
TO THE GAS
The woman is naked,
her damp hair
in strings.
The SS officer leers
Don’t you dance?
and orders her
to dance for him.
She does,
and as she dances
moves closer to him,
grabs his gun
and shoots him.
Although she too
is quickly shot,
she dies dancing —
a dancer,
not a number
without a name.
WHO HELD THE CAMERA
SO STEADILY, AND WHY?
Photographs
at the Holocaust Museum.
In black and white
a naked girl,
maybe six,
gripped by the neck
in the hands of a woman
with huge biceps.
A mentally disturbed girl
shortly before her murder.
Near the dangling girl
is a photo in summer —
trees are fully leafed,
dark smoke pours
out of one building.
Down the hall
a young man with glasses
takes aim at a man
kneeling
in front of a pit of bodies:
the pistol points at the neck
so no shattered bone
will fly his way.