I Cry For Them
During the holocaust
So many jews
Lost their lives
And I cry for them
Still today
poem by Aldo Kraas
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The Holocaust never quite leaves Israeli Jews alone. Arabs use it against them and they use it against Arabs. Jews use it against other Jews. Even the president of the United States, it seems, can use it against the prime minister of Israel.
quote by David K. Shipler
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Not Just A Bad Review
We’d not have had a Tisha B’av or Holocaust
if they’d just given us a bad review,
but we’ve been killed by them, not just divorced:
that’s what we mean by “hard to be a Jew”.
The Arabs say we are the favorite folk
of which they wish to be entirely rid;
unfortunately this is not a joke:
it’s still true that it’s shver tsu sayn a yid.
Kenneth Turan, senior movie critic for the LA Times, addressing an audience at UCLA today, was asked whether he thought the role of Jews has historically been fairly represented in Hollywood movies. He replied that it was impossible to do so. “After all, ” he said, “historically Jews haven’t just got bad reviews. I wish that were all that they’ve received.”
11/27/07
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Mea Culpa'd
Crusades, blood libels, inquisitions and conversions that were forced,
indifference to the blood of helpless Jews spilt in the holocaust,
a litany of crimes for which the Pope should use his bully pulpit,
and yet equivocates while in denial, hardly mea culpa’d,
will be forgotten soon, because the mantra never to forget
itself will be forgotten and the crimes of Nazi will be set
aside, diminished in importance by great other acts of genocide
and claims they never happened to six million, and the Jews just lied.
Pope John Paul II has expressed condemnation regarding the acts of the Church against the Jews but has failed to admit that the responsibility was not that of individual Catholics but of the Church. Furthermore, he maintains an eerie silence about the passive role that the Church as a whole, as Pope Pius XII in particular (whom he wishes to canonize) played during the Holocaust.
I wrote the first quatrain on 3/14/00 and the second on 2/10/-0, compiling my poems on the Shoah.
3/14/00,2/10/09
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Genesis Of Genocide
GENESIS OF GENOCIDE
Jewish history comes with homily,
the seder shared by all the family
the best example. When men talk about
the Holocaust the homilies they're taught
homogenize the fate that menaced us
the Jews, with that of gentiles. Genesis
of genocide is changed: the hermeneutic
of revision makes it therapeutic
for those who wish to drive Jews from their land.
"The Jews, " they say, "have like the Nazis sinned,
creating victims just as Nazis did,
replacing Hitler with the settlers' God, "
revisionists exclaiming "Out of order! "
when hearing at the end of every seder
the mantra, "Next year in Jerusalem! "
while they as chauvinists condemn
the Jews, in spite of their thousand years
of blood and sweat and toil, and lots of tears,
as then in Jewish wounds rub salt, declaring
that there were other holocausts, comparing
other genocidal horrors to
what happened to the Jews, a point of view
that totally distorts significance of what,
in Wannsee, Hitler's minions chose to plot,
reducing the Solution that was Final
to a competition's quarterfinal.
The greatest homily of Jewish history
is Jews' survival, a great mystery
which it's impossible to overhype,
based on the theme of their great anthem, hope.
The last part of this poem was inspired by an emotional outburst that I had after Gerald Duchovnay told Linda, Florence Zhou and me about how he teaches students in Texas about the Holocaust by using the Shoah to explain to them "the holocaust in Sudan."
Ed Rothstein ("Memories of Holocaust, Fortified, " NYT,4/22/11) writes from Skokie:
Before the $45 million Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center opened here two years ago, there was some urgency in completing its 65,000-square-foot building, which now stands so incongruously monumental in the midst of Chicago's suburban landscape. At one time,7,000 Jews bearing the scars of the Holocaust had lived in Skokie with their families, and they were aging. Many had contributed artifacts to the museum; some participated when it was just a storefront on Main Street; some had their oral histories recorded for its exhibition and their lives chronicled in the institution's imposing companion book, "Memory and Legacy."…..
If we want to find a lesson in the events, for example, is it that individuals should not be bystanders or that nations should not be appeasers? Is the lesson that everybody should have a social conscience, or that a different kind of political action is needed when such forces emerge? Was the Holocaust a product of intolerance or an expression of more specific archetypal hatreds?
One of the challenges faced by Holocaust museums as survivors die is to understand their experience by seeing it through more than their eyes, to examine the past without homogenizing it with platitudes, to offer history without homily.
This poem echoes one that I wrote on 2/17/09, inspired by a statement by the Lubavitcher Rebbe:
TOMORROW MORNING, EARLY
"Will there be another holocaust? "
they asked the Rebbe of Lubavitch.
For an answer he was never lost.
"Of course there will be. Man is savage."
"When will this happen? " they inquired.
"Morgen in der frih, " he said,
Tomorrow morning, early, has transpired,
and millions are already dead.
It's happened in Rwanda and Sudan,
as in silence we looked on.
It couldn't happen here, we say. It can,
and millions more will soon be gone.
Long ago an interviewer asked the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, if he believed the Holocaust could ever happen in America. "Morgen in der frih, " was his reply, Yiddish words that mean: "Early tomorrow morning."
11/6/12 #11803
poem by Gershon Hepner
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We're Jews, my family, and Jews break down into two distinct subcultures: book Jews and money Jews. We were money Jews.
Lost in translation
At My favorite Chinese restaurant
The other day, I somehow got to thinking
about ethnicity
I wondered if there were Chinese Jews
So I asked my waiter
Explicitly:
“Do you have Chinese Jews? ”
I innocently asked
my Chinese waiter
“I don’t think so, I really don’t know,
But I’ll ask the manager and
Let you know later”
He returned in a while
And said with a smile
“no…No have Chinese Jews.”
I couldn’t believe it: a bazzillion people
No “Morrys“…“No Sheckys? ”
What astounding news! !
I queried him again
“could you check
Once more my friend? ”
He denied and replied,
“I regret to admit ItAnd don’t want
To offend
But what you ask for
Has us completely
Confused”
“So sorry to say… that for today
We have only: Grape..Orange…Tomato
and Prune Jews.”
poem by David Whalen
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I'll Save The World Tommorrow
People give me a break today
Because it is the sabbath today and it means a day of rest
For me and all the Jews that lives in Telaviv
But tomorrow I'll save the world by spreading God's loving world
To everyone that comes to God's house
Because God's house is open for everyone and everyone is welcome To God's House
poem by Aldo Kraas
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Following the Second World War, we are a country of one ethnicity. After the moving of the borders, after the tragedy of the Holocaust and the murder of Polish Jews, we don't have large minority groups.
quote by Aleksander Kwasniewski
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Shaving cream
Shaving Cream
On the day that yet another car bomb exploded
in Baghdad, I forgot to buy shaving cream and
had to go back to the shop, there is weariness
about bad news from Iraq. I also forgot to buy
a litre of milk and a goat cheese.
Four thousand US troops killed, which, after
five years of war, as an amazing small number;
but then, this is a war where civilians get to do
the dying.Six hundred thousand or near a million
dead, no one knows or cares, but it might end up
as being as great a crime as the holocaust:
Was it five or six million Jews who perished?
This is a number that concerns deniers greatly,
who are of the opinion that only about 2oo Jews
died, regrettably of typhus, on a train journey
between Poland and Russia.
What we do know, is that the holocaust was
worst criminal act known to man; it is therefore
an eternal shame that Israel uses this tragedy to
silence us when they continue to unlawfully take
more of Palestinian land
It is much easier to take up Tibet’s cause, isn’t
strange that the riots it happens know as
the Olympic in Beijing looms? Forget Iraq and
the Gaza strip, where our hands are bloodied;
this new cause will make us feel morally superior
poem by Jan Oskar Hansen
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Two- point perspective
Thousands of Jews
Killed
For what reason?
None
Thousands of blacks
Slaves
All because
People are lazy
Racism
The Holocaust
Unfortunately,
All of
Our world’s history
poem by Twisted Rose
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Today! !
Today the sun was shine less
Today the moon was mood less
Today the birds were wing less
Today as the sun rose, they told me
Today as I woke
They told me
Last night I’ve lost my voice they echoed me
Today the mountains are height less
Today the clock was time less
Today the sky was wind less
Today my hands were workless
Today as the sun boiled, they told me
Today as I spoiled
They told me
Last morning I’ve lost my hands they assured me
Today the world was sightless
Today the room was lightless
Today the voices were figureless
Today my eyes were imageless
Today as the night dived, they told me
Today as I defined
They told me
Last afternoon I’ve lost my eyes they cursed me
Today the era was soundless
Today the room was noise less
Today the things were strike less
Today my ears were voice less
Today as the dawn fell, they told me
Today as I felt
They told me
Last evening I’ve lost my ears they pitted me
Last night I was voiceless
Last night I was hand less
Last night I was eyes less
Last night I was ears less
And now today I feel
That they’ll tell me
That I’ve lost, they’ll yell me
Lost a heartbeat
And now is grave less
Left in open far godless
Unmentioned they say expressionless.
poem by Nishtha Dutta
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Six Million Reasons
the World:
doesn’t mess-over the Jews,
like it used to,
since they built them
a Country,
that’s definitely, a
“holocaust of trouble”
for anybody,
thinkin’ final solution
for Israel’s army.
ain’t no more,
crematorium ovens
planned in their...
Jewish future! ! !
poem by Ronald Stroman
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The Holocaust
In a cold and silent world, weeping people wait,
Hoping and praying to not face this solemn fate.
But even thought they were quiet, as quite as they could be,
They were still found in the dark ghettos, the whole Jewish family.
The cries from the little ones so confused and so afraid,
Were ignored by the wretched Nazis, who caused heartbreak in that day.
They led them on a tearful trail toward to dreaded Auschwitz place.
And treated them like guinea pigs. testing them face to face.
Not to care in the world did the Nazi leaders possess,
Toward the unfair treatment to which placed the Jews in distress.
And all these fears and terrors led up to this fatal loss,
Of all the millions of innocent Jews killed in the Holocaust.
poem by Brenda Kodesh
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The Holocaust committed by the Nazis turned this country, where most of the European Jews used to live and where their culture used to flourish, into a massive grave. This is why initiatives to revive Jewish culture in Poland is so important.
quote by Marek Belka
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Schindler's List
Oskar Schindler was a member of the Nazi party. He was a, womanizer, war profiteer, and saved the lives of 1,100 Jews during the holocaust. He was enigmatic - one man against overwhelming odds who made a difference.
'Save one life and you save the world.'
The tide of evil swept across Europe
And darkness eclipsed the light
Nazi jack-boots stamped down
Upon the necks of the oppressed
Torture and executions were the rule
And for the Jews... Hitler's Final Solution.
Schindler was a German businessman
Successful and enjoying the good life
Wining and dining in the best restaurants,
Making love to beautiful women
Driving fast cars and befriending high ranking SS
While using the black market to make huge profits.
When he saw the treatment of the Jews
Forced to wear the Star of David
Humiliated and beaten, murdered in the streets
Living in ghettos like animals in a zoo
Transported in cattle trucks to death camps
A divine light flickered within his conscience.
And as the flame grew steadily brighter
He purchased a factory employing Jewish labour
Saving them from the gas chamber
Created a list of names and bribed the SS
Risking torture and execution
Schindler saved as many lives as he could.
Those he saved call themselves 'Schindler's Juden'
And after the war Israel honoured him
Giving him the title of Righteous Person.
And he planted a tree in the Avenue of the Righteous
Where it still grows as a sign of one man's morality
Oskar Schindler is buried in Israel.
poem by Colin Ian Jeffery
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I Had Parents-They Were Jews
I HAD PARENTS /THEY WERE JEWS
I had parents-
They were Jews-
I am a Jew
But what of their childrens’ children
And their children, if they have them?
What of this one Freedman- Zeibert family?
What of us, the only family I come from?
What of us?
Where are the Jews?
Will there be any
In a generation or two?
What of all those generations who struggled and sacrificed and stayed alive before us as Jews?
What of them?
What of me?
What of us?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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True Origin of the Ewes
Some say that we come from old Tado
others say ancestral home is Notsie
but our traits point us to old Egypt
while our practices do depict Jews
in dorflefle, trekosi and homtodzo
does what we shroud now tritely aloft
secret dialects we speak in sacred shrines
do explain or not why it sounds Hebrew
on the lips of our stark illiterate priests
or a minority feared, envied this much?
if our open secrets we hide in silence
to explicate the prejudice we feel now
is our incurable idolatory from ages past
stoked the wrath of the Ancient of Days
to estrange us in pillage from the old fold?
what excuse then do we have as curators
to our perplexed progeny in strange lands
why we are demonized to whip hate sentiment
just as before the holocaust the other fold
who now look white while we look this black?
today our hearts will find serene moorings
when we look within and beyond this self
jettison taints of traditions of anachronism
keep societal ship buoyant in humane waters
at where our freedom ends starts another’s
when our affinity is seen as selfish herd
when they say Ewes only stick to Ewes
indictment of kinship, mystery and nepotism
“How many Ewes have you been nice to? ”
more fingers point at their manifest flaws
how would brothers who now sow discord
see us as heathen and themselves as gentiles
know the real story of the lost ten kingdom
that the doors of salvation will soon close
when Jews retrace steps the redeemer accept?
Written by
Dela Bobobee©
poem by Dela Bobobee
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The United Nations was founded in the aftermath of World War II, just as the world was beginning to learn the full horrors of history's worst genocide, the Holocaust that consumed 6 million Jews and 3 million others in Europe.
quote by Linda Chavez
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Half-life: a prophecy
They died; they all died, without a moan;
their final passage writ in stone.
Dark shadows here and there you see
where Jews passed to eternity.
In these silent streets no children play
No trees survived the heat that day.
A suicide martyr some call a hero
was detonated at ground zero.
Nine hundred thousand are believed lost
in this second, instant, holocaust.
The suitcase he held in his hand
was the latest weapon from Iran.
My team has come here to retrieve
the evidence from Tel Aviv.
No one will be living here
Not for another fifty years.
• * * * * *
A damsel with a dosimeter,
in a vision I once saw,
warned me that appeasement
nearly always leads to war.
poem by John F. McCullagh
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Affirmations(2002-2004)
Today, I will get up before my alarm
Today, I won't close my eyes until dusk
Today, I will not get a speeding ticket
Today, I will count this day as a first
Today, I will enjoy the life that has been left to me
Today, I won't frown over the may-have-beens
Today, I won't cry over the should-have-beens
Today, I won't wonder about the could-have-beens
Today, I'll smile.......Today, I'll Laugh.... Today, I'll relax
Today, I won't feel alone because I don't see you
Today, I'll find something new that wasn't true of you
Today, I won't be afraid to look upon a new face
Today, I'll step up and take my place
Today, I won't think about what I've lost
Today, I'll look forward instead of behind
Today, I'll find some piece of mind
Today, I'll hope.... Today, I'll pray... Today, I'll believe
Today, I'll dream as if I always did
Today, I'll wish on a star the way I used to
Today, I'll reach for the heavens and sigh
Today, My heart will start to heal
Today, the biggest miracle is ME.
Today, Yesterday's problems ceased to be
Today, the rain has stopped and the sun has returned
Today, the breath of kindness is found in words
Today, I wonder.... Today, I am a child.
poem by Lillian B. Rose
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