I Wish It Were Fiction
Holocaust Memories 1939 - 1945
When It's All Over: Verses 1 to 12
1.
The end. The night engulfs the sky. It is engulfed by smoke during the day and lights up again at night. Horrible.
Just like the desert, wild from the very beginning, full of clouds in the day time, and of fiery flames at night –
My people, joyful, strengthened in its fate, facing life with determination, and now — the end, the very end
They tilled us all, big and small, all of us were murdered here.
2.
Why, oh why? No one asks why. What’s the reason? Because every one - from the best to the worst gentile
Because the worst of them helped the Germans, and the best just looked on, with one eye, he pretended that he was asleep –
No, no, no one will ask for an accounting, nobody will inquire why?
Our blood is cheap, it can be freely spilled; we can be murdered, annihilated, murdered and remain unpunished.
3.
Among the Poles, they looked for freedom fighters, simply those who were suspected that they were loyal to their people...
Russians were murdered in the cities and villages as “partisans”
But when it came to us, they murdered infants in the cribs, even the unborn,
We were all deported to Treblinka. And before they killed us, they used to speak to us, and said:
4.
Undress here, put your clothes away in order, shoes in pairs, leave everything here,
You will still need it, clothes and shoes and everything that you leave here, you are coming back soon
You have just arrived, haven’t you? From Warsaw, from Prague, from Paris, from Saloniki? Go ahead, take a bath
And thousands are led into the large chamber…thousands are waiting naked, until the first thousand have been gassed.
5.
This is the way, we were murdered, from Greece to Norway, and as far as Moscow – close to seven million.
And this did not include the unborn, who were still in their mothers bodies. Only the pregnant, the mothers to be are included. And every Jew in America, or in Israel, or wherever must demand of the world the children. Demand, demand!
Demand the unborn and murdered, the suffocated who were still in their mother’s womb.
6.
Why? No one on this earth is asking why. But everything is demanding why? Listen, listen.
Every destroyed home, every smashed wall, every city and thousands of villages, they all ask!
Why? Listen! Because destroyed homes do not stay destroyed for long, and homes, empty homes to not remain empty for long.
Other people move in, others of different nationality, different language. Even the days and nights are different.
7.
When the sun will rise over a small village or town in Lithuania or in Poland, it will not see any Jews.
Someone looking out the window, an elderly, chanting a chapter of Psalms, or another one on his way to the synagogue,
There, will still be peasants with their carts on the roads, traveling to the market place.
So many gentiles! Even more than before! But the market, the market is dead! The market is full, yet it is not full!
8.
And Jewish children — they will not awaken from their sleep, from their sweet dreams every morning –
They will not go to cheider any longer, they will not watch the little birds, they will not play in the sand any more.
Oh, boys, you Jewish boys with their beautiful eyes! Little angels! Where are you from! From here are from some other place?
Oh, beautiful little girls, those who are immaculately dressed, and those who have not managed to wash and are still sleepy.
9.
They are not there any longer! Don’t you, on the other side of the ocean
Ask about Kasrilevke, about Yehupetz... Let go!
Do not search for the Menachem-Mendels, the Tevies, the Wealthy Solomons, the Mothke Ganevs… Don’t look for them!
Just like the prophets Yesaja, Jeremaja, Eziekel, Amos of the eternal Book of Prophets, they will cry out,
Just like the cry from Bialik’s poems, from Sholem Aleichems books, or From those of Sholem Ash!
10.
Mothers will not put their babies to sleep any longer. Jews will not die any longer! There will be no more births
No one will sing the beautiful Yiddish songs written by poets, great writers. It’s all gone!
There will be no more Yiddish theatre. There won’t be any one to laugh, Or occasionally shed a tear,
And musicians, or painters, will not create any of their beautiful works, they will not search for any new themes.
11.
Jewish workers in the cities will not fight any longer, they will not be prepared to sacrifice on behalf of the people,
There will be no healers, no amelioration of anyone’s pain.
Oh still gentile! You too participated in shooting Jews, but the bullets finally aimed at you,
Oh, who will help you build your cities and villages. Who will be prepared to help you?
12.
Woe is me! There is no one left! There was a people and is no more!
There was a people, a nation, and is no there any longer!
This is the story that has its beginning from generations back until now…
It is a sad story, who can say that it was pretty?
The story of Amalek, and of a more gruesome enemy, the German… the sky distant, the earth wide, the oceans enormous!
May they all merge into one, but let them not destroy the evil ones
"Our blood is cheap, it can be freely spilled"