Poetry: Holocaust – New York Almanack

Holocaust

We played, we laughed
We were loved.

We were ripped from the arms of our
parents and thrown into the fire.

We were nothing more than children.

We had a future. We were going to be lawyers, rabbis, wives, teachers,
mothers. We had dreams, then we had no hope. We were taken away
in the dead of night like cattle in cars, no air to breathe smothering,
crying, starving, dying. Separated from the world to be no more.

From the ashes, hear our plea. This atrocity to mankind can not
happen again. Remember us, for we were the children whose dreams
and lives were stolen away.

This poem by the late Barbara Sonek (1942 – 2010) was submitted by Norma Goldstein. Sonek was born in the United States, spent her entire life here and was not directly impacted by the Holocaust.