POEM: My Relationship to the Shoah (Yom HaShoah)

Originally published in 2021

Written in loving memory of my father, Moshe Shmuel ben Shimon Tuvia haLevi, z”l, and for the sake of the healing of all those who suffered and of all those who continue to suffer. 

I don’t want to write this poem
Because I don’t want to call up the images
And feel the feelings
Because I don’t want to read the poem myself.

And yet i am compelled
By loyalty to the past, to my people and her pains
By duty, heavy and unshakable

And also by some slim hope
That in the expression there will be relief
For me and maybe for you
Maybe there will be some recognition
Of the pain that continues inside us unabated.

When I walk up Arborvista
A street bursting with life and trees
Playing children and chirping birds
My feet sometimes remember other walks
A march in the frozen Poland countryside
Kicked along by the harshest of guns and soldiers
Near starving in thin prisoner uniforms
And misfit boots with holes if there are any at all
Death all around and in my heart
And worse than death — dread and hopelessness
And empty horizons with no escape.

Or at dinner in our lovely comfortable home
No real worries at this sturdy chestnut table
My children healthy, laughing, singing, teasing
Easy and confident in their life flow
Around us plentiful bright colored bounty 
Me imagining the meager bread of the ghetto
Saving up a little sugar for a cake
The little ones on the corners with hollow eyes
Anne Frank’s family dividing up potatoes 
Lying in bed hungry
The dreams of the camp inmates 
Who remember, too, at night, the bounty that was
From amidst the terror of today
A reminder for me that today
Could also become a terror
Past and present and future combine
In my stomach to sinking dreading
Knowing only sorrow and hopelessness.

I could go on because it does go on
Endlessly inside me
Some days more, some days less
Sometimes triggered by the mention of
Germany, Poland, prison, even camp or train —
My mind goes easily to the cattle cars
The people starving and stuffed together
And mostly the feeling inside of no hope
Piles of shoes or showers or bars of soap
Can sicken me
Barking dogs outside send panic through my veins
I am suddenly not here but in danger
A trip to the mikvah I heard once a story
I can’t remember the details
But the feeling is left
Vulnerable and attacked
Bloodied in the ritual bath.

Or sometimes there is no trigger
Just the story comes unbidden
Like an alarm awaking me to know and remember
And not forget
My uncle’s brother going up a second time
For slop in Auschwitz
On his first day
And the punishment that came
For all to witness 
I won’t write it it hurts too much
Or the story of his father being danced upon
I have my own image of firing rifles on the ground
A prisoner of only bones being made to dance
Through the bullets as they laugh.

Or my cousin Lala standing for hours
In the heat at attention by some cruel 
Ghetto despot inspecting rows of Jews.

When I was six they showed us images
In school.  My teacher said
Know that this can happen here
I understood I was not safe
Never safe anywhere

Never again, they said, 
But i heard only never forget.
Zachor Remember Stay with it
Words forged into childhood minds
With the picture of a boy, hands raised.

At home I breathed 
The pain inside my father
Knew though he spoke of it little
The suffering child in him
Lost in a world with no ground

I used to believe with all my might
That if I put my toothpaste on just right
Arranging the brush and paste just so to align
Then this would never come again

The weight so heavy and as I grew
It turned to avenues that seem more logical
On the surface 
Care about other refugees 
Which I don’t do enough
Learn Torah
Do some redeeming work 
Earn this life and its continuing 
If not — and it is always not
Enough — then yes, the world will head
Again toward destruction 
It already is for others whom you have not saved.

My therapist says it is a part
A part of me that imagines and knows
And despairs and that this part
Is very very young and cannot hold
These truths.   We work with her, 
This little girl 
And find her deep in the dark dungeon 
Of my being.  She is sitting cross legged
On the floor, head down
Surrounded by a circle of guarding Nazis.
My therapist says to get her out of there
But she won’t come.  
She needs no guards.  
She stays of her own volition:
Someone has to carry the weight.

We stay with her in that circle
And find out more.
She starts to cry 
And I can feel very clearly now
As clear as the light that shines not in this circle
That there is only one force that can help her
Only one force that has the power
To remove her from these torments
Trite it seems but I, my whole soul screams it
LOVE.  Only love can bring her out.
Even now I feel the shaking truth of it
She comes out into the sun
And sits trembling in an open field
Recovering and healing.

The memories and images are still there
And they return as they must
My ancestors weigh on my shoulders
And they, too, need love and sunshine
Some days I imagine taking them by the hand
Into that wide open field and dancing in a circle with them
But they —
They are not ready.   

I pray and pray and sometimes I get
A small inkling of a presence,
An angel just above my head
A swirling circle of light that can hold the evil
I see the terrifying images trying to kick out at the edges
Of the circle, but they make no dent
The light, the love holds firm.   

I hesitate to end here 
As if all is resolved
When it is not. 
Please God helps us to hold the pain

Photo by Arina Krasnikova at Pexels