Introduction by Peter Fredlake Mingus Union High School Arizona, USA
Our project with the ID cards, from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC; was to " adopt" an individual victim during our Holocaust study. Each student had a rough guide for writing a poem of dedication to the person. They could follow the guide verbatim, but as you can see, many students took off on their own and wrote in the voice of the victim or wrote to a specific audience (For example, Harmony Chaikin's poem is addressed to the perpetrators in the voice of one who resisted). I think these were the most powerful poems. The idea behind the assignment was to address the problem of the world's response -- or lack of response -- to the Holocaust. In part, the Holocaust happened as a result of otherwise good people doing nothing. Historian Ian Kershaw says, " The road to Auschwitz was built by hate, but paved with indifference." We students need to see the victims of the Holocaust as individuals and to respond to them on a human level, just as we need to see ALL people as individuals, not as faceless parts of a group. Here in Arizona, we see Chicanos and Native Americans stereotyped regularly, and lately we've seen a resurgence of the term "jew" used as a derogatory verb, and comments like, "She's so Jewish." And, of course, there's no letup in the term "fag." The fact is, most students who look at people in these stereotypical and hateful ways have never gotten to know an Apache or Chicano/a or a Jew or a gay man or woman. Last spring, Rescuer Irene Gut Opdyke reminded us, " You young people must stand for something good. You MUST!" We hope our contributions to An End To Intolerance show where we stand.
Dedicated to Chaje Adler, Who Was Killed On 19 May 1944 at the Age of Forty, Along with Two of Her Daughters
Mother, where did you go? Your smile as we finished our studies The people coming to you, The Polish Tailor The prosperous whirr of your sewing machine The squeak of the foot pedals Your thick, full hair, always pulled back Where did it go? Then the wave mislead souls washed in Crashed over us, knocked us down But your strength picked us up Hid us away from the Nazis Your will to survive, to live on That Sunday when me and Daddy went out, Where did you go? When we came home it was all gone Our house was rampaged; you were missing And please mother, where did you go? Jon Burnett
In Memory of Lilly Applebaum Liblin
Sleep While the breath of my past becomes the breath of my future, Until my thumping heart beat pounds The potatoes open on the cold ground, And the scrawny Hungarian women and children Dressed in stripes, With no hair to dance on their shoulders, Can reach the little balls of hope. Their hazel eyes Like puddles in a forest, Do not need to see the fear of the barracks. Do not need, to hear the thunder of hunger in their ears. The children Do not need to see their mother's last breath of air. So sleep, For when I leave And you march them to their death, You will not be able to tell That I made each women and child In this prison Stronger. Harmony Chaikin
For Danuta Justyna
Danuta, my older sister Why didn't I look like her? Her black brown hair, always tied back forced your gaze to travel down Towards the two deep brown pools of her eyes That held so many memories within Danuta, my older sister Why was such torture put into this world for her to see? Her eyes witnessed so many painful events Germany invading Poland Our friends, Sabina and Helena striving to stay alive As they lived in a ghetto, crammed with people So many innocent Holocaust victims Dying and screaming for a solution Danuta, my older sister Why couldn't there have been an easier way to help? She and I joined the resistance movement Delivering weapons and illegal papers Sheltering other resistance fighters That was our way of life Until Danuta had been caught, twice Danuta, my older sister Why was she sent away? Sent from concentration camps to prisons She was treated as a child's unwanted toy Thrown from place to place, until it ended locked up in a chest Danuta, my older sister When would I see her again? She was finally liberated from prison I was so grateful to talk with her again So grateful to see the two deep brown pools of her eyes That held so many memories within Charity Bissen
Dedication to Aranka
Thirty years old with a family of four separated when captured only her daughter and she travel together showers splattering on hard, cold floors her reddish-brown hair cut short thousands moved to camps among them she went, too Haley Arnold
In Memory of Lucy Kuperfer Munzer (1899-1943) To Lucie
I never knew you. Your eyes, so kind and gentle. I now never will. You and Hans moved to Nice, feeling warm and safe. The Italians would leave you alone there, free to do as you choose. You were only forty-four when it happened. Sitting there, you weren't prepared. The Germans took over, tons of empty expressionless faces making orders. All dreams of hope are lost. Your heart sinks; your eyes fill with tears. You board the train to Auschwitz, crammed in a tiny black box. Thinking you were getting a shower, maybe there is hope after all. Killed without a sign of sorrow. Just another victim lost in the poisonous gasses. I wish I could have known you. I might have saved your life. Amber Wunderlich