We Met Once A Year Poem by Richard Kalfus

We The Second Generation…..

We second generation survivors of the Holocaust
meet once a year rememberingNovember 9,1938,
when synagogueswere torched.
When Jews were forced to leap from their windows.
When neighbors looked on in silence.

Today we can never forget,
the loss and grief
of our Holocaust pas.t

Each of us has a story to tell:
A mother beaten to death.
A smiling guard overseeing
emaciated Jews as many fall
to their death
in a day and night roll call.

We were seen as mere numbers
in their relentless, murderoustask.
a starving Jew, my uncle,
steals food from a dying Jew,
and other frightening Jews look on in despair.

We had a bond, thinking "Oh' how unfair
that we were able to go on living everyday lives,
in the grip of our Holocaust past.