Skip to main content

Leaving the Ghetto by Ava L.

My friends of yesterday pass me by,
Toward the gate of the ghetto,
Silently weeping.
My heart trembles;
The look in their eyes
Frightens me.

Together,
We walk toward the station
Under a summer sun.
I begin to wonder:
Could this be just a nightmare?
How is it possible?

Standing on the station platform
Under a blazing sun,
We climb into
The convoy of cattle cars,
Waiting
Like an open tomb.

Eighty persons in each one,
Eighty persons
Abandoned by the whole world.
We pretend
That we are not,
For what if one of us still did believe.

A prolonged whistle pierces the air. The wheels begin to grind.
Something inside me feels the need to cry.
For unfulfilled hopes, extinguished futures.
Dreams,
Burned to a cinder, turned into ashes,
Devoured by a black flame.

I look back.
The ghetto
Disappears over the horizon.
Ahead of us,
Darkness
For all eternity.
The crucible of death.
The center of hell.
Never have I heard
Such silence.
Labels:

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 22, 2018 at 3:52 PM

    Ava, your poem was so amazing. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousOctober 28, 2018 at 1:00 PM

    Ava,

    I really appreciate how the phrases fit in so well together. The last part that says, "such silence," is really powerful.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousOctober 28, 2018 at 3:35 PM

    Ava,

    I thought your poem was great! I thought your choice of vocabulary was very good. I like perspective you brought in of being in a dream of boarding the convoy and them you realize it is actually reality. Overall I thought it was a wonderful poem.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Artifact Post - Eliza

Four Jewish children laugh and talk outside the Konvo ghetto in Lithuania.  Taken by George Kadish https://collections.ushmm.org/iiif-b/assets/706623 https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1045736
Post a Comment
Read more

blogpost 5 - Malcolm

The about the Holocaust has made me more aware of how easy it is for us to turn to evil and believe it’s right. When I was first learning about the Holocaust, the word fear seemed to stand out the most to me. The Germans blamed all of their problems on the Jews because of fear, they put the Jews in ghettos because of fear, or they tried to annihilate all the Jews because of fear. I think it is really important to pay attention to people’s feelings especially feelings like fear and desperation. I feel like we, the world let this happen. We allowed this to happen because of our arrogance. We expected that just because we gave Germany a whole bunch of rules to follow and took some of their land, they would immediately become subordinate to us. And even after the Holocaust we in America allowed things like this happen during the civil rights movement. They’re are some people out there that no matter what you do, will not become good people and it is our job to protect people from those h...
Post a Comment
Read more

Blog Post #5-Lachlan.A

This experience of the Holocaust affect me on an emotional level. Before this experience I did not know much about the Holocaust I just had heard of horrible man named Adolf Hitler and the genocide he had created. After reading the book Night and after the documentaries and films that we watched I've been slapped by reality. I've been dwelling a lot on my own as well, about how people could have so much hatred on the people who are their neighbors. Just ordinary people that have so much hatred. I'm just so confused how people could just back stab their neighbors as soon as a new political party rose. Ordinary people turning into monsters you don't see that everyday. I've taken away so many things from this unit. I think the thing that just draws me the most from in this unit is to never forget. So many innocent people died just because of what they practiced and what they look like. So the least I can do is memorialize them by never forgetting what happened to them....
Post a Comment
Read more