A Million Thoughts
Based on the Holocaust testimony of Bertha Haberfeld
By Surina Patel
A million thoughts are rushing through my brain,
The looming gas chamber ahead of me,
The sounds I hear and the sights that I see,
The mud beneath my numb feet from the rain,
Everything feels unreal—all of this pain,
Living as a Jew, I could not foresee,
Taking my last breath—death comes upon me,
What did I deserve to go down this lane?
I open my eyes and let out a scream,
The sights—the sounds—the feelings—it felt so real,
So afraid now, I don’t know what to do,
When will these nightmares end—all of these dreams?
I can’t escape all the feelings I feel,
Fear is controlling me—all I’ve been through
A Home Bid Farewell
Based on the Holocaust testimony of Joseph Aleksander
By Juliana Phan
Bid farewell to home—to games in the yard,
to Friday night cholent, its wafting scent—
Watch the smoke of extinguished hearth ascend,
leaving behind a dwindling warmth and scars
By neighbors’ hands, the home is torn apart
School bullies that attacked without relent
return as laws and priests that lack dissent
and distinguish only by yellow stars
Hate burns the home, reason, and one’s dreaming;
Ships off hope to either death or labor
in railroads that screech to unknown futures
To those who’ve lost their homes and life’s meaning
faith and strength don’t matter. Their sole savior
is the kindness hate has not yet fractured
Now
By Bill Feng
Based on the Holocaust testimony of Nathan Shapow
Think only of Now and save yourself lament.
In Magdeburg- slouch and pow! Another person dead.
There is no time for even mere content.
The planes come, with no German’s consent,
everyone just runs, nothing to be said.
Think only of Now and save yourself lament.
The Germans claim of a well-planned event,
and say that we shall be relocated.
There is no time for even mere content.
Rumors of inevitable death start to ferment,
jump the electrical fence because of increasing dread.
Think only of Now and save yourself lament.
In the sewers we stay with one intent,
to make sure the camp will not be our deathbed,
there is no time for even mere content.
The hours pass, to my torment,
until the Americans win and our problems shed.
Think only of Now and save yourself lament,
Now is the time for everlasting content.
The Descent down the Mountain
Based on the Holocaust testimony of Natan Gipsman
By Edward Kim
Dante says heaven’s on top of a purgatory mound
Men will fight to rise away from punishment’s might
But the height we go up to only leads to hellish ground
Even as we workers of light survive underground
To face down is sometimes better than to see man’s worst plight
Dante says heaven’s on top of a purgatory mound
Guards shove us in; with whips the guards pound
The squashed strain upwards to escape from death’s sight
But the height we go up to only leads to hellish ground
We feel the trial of pain; we fall with blue stripes all around
For every escapee, punishment by tenfold will ignite
Dante says heaven’s on top of a purgatory mound
Even as I rise up from stars, my sight unsteady, unsound
Thoughts of pain worse than hell will make others take flight
But the height we go up to only leads to hellish ground
With the world upside down, I know that some may have found
A place with no sorrows where one could wait for daylight
Dante says heaven’s on top of a purgatory mound
But the height we go up to only leads to hellish ground
The above are all students of Oxford Academy, in Orange County, California.
I love the unapologetically prosy lyrical style when stark reality is transformed into poetry that demands to be sung.
The Case for Free Inquiry
You say they gassed six million Jews;
I ask you how you know.
You say it’s from historians;
They agree that it is so.
But what about the Forrestal death?
They agree on that one, too.
And until I checked it for myself
I only thought I knew.
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