Dear Yossi I trust that you will find it appropriate on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, to post the following poem relating to the Holocaust that I wrote as a young man when I first became aware of its full impact. This poem is included in my book "From Here to Obscurity"
I was not there And yet I was We were not there And yet we were We, the lucky ones Whose forbears flew the European nest Before the black and blackened German eagle pounced We were not there But our Grandmothers were And our grief and anger remain unabated At the bestial manner in which they were humiliated The atrocities echo across the nation and time Reawakening the would-be deaf Reopening the unhealed wounds Reamplifying the unheard cries Reinforcing the resolve to never ever Endure such miseries again Who said the Jews should suffer because they are Jews? Or man should suffer for his views? Was it God who has long forsaken mankind? Or mankind that has forsaken God? A thousand miles away A thousand years away The stench of the stinking Nazi cesspool Will forever permeate the thinking Jewish soul One need not be near the gas chambers To smell the foul gas One need not see the acrid smoke of the crematorium To know it symbolises the Nazi German emporium The universe, so the scientists say Is dotted with black holes Their energy draws into its very centre All within its range So with the Holocaust It is the black hole of the Jewish collective soul It draws and will continue to draw us in For generations to come The Jew knows in his heart That the past will never pass It is with us forever Yoel Sheridan [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.tenterbooks.com Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the AJL =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: Hasafran @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
