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Time & ]Leisure<br />
55<br />
A Long Walk<br />
Deborah Zuckerman<br />
We put on our ten layers<br />
Blue jackets on top<br />
White stars on the backs blaring<br />
We are young Jews, look and stop.<br />
We stood ten across<br />
Arms locked together<br />
Behind the blowing Israeli flags<br />
We were elated, fight as a feather.<br />
Then the announcement came<br />
We stood silent, straight, and tall<br />
Yacov played his violin<br />
All barriers began to fall.<br />
We started toward the gate<br />
To leave the colleglate-looking first<br />
Hell<br />
"Freedom Through Work" behind us<br />
We marched out of that cell.<br />
Some bowed their heads in mourning<br />
But all walked full of pride<br />
Poles looked from their windows<br />
These six thousand Jews were not<br />
going to hide.<br />
Our closed mouths at this moment<br />
Yet opened eyes to the horrors that<br />
were<br />
Let the world know we are here<br />
We looked like one gigantic blue blur.<br />
The deafening sound from our<br />
footsteps<br />
Screamed this atrocity will not<br />
reoccur<br />
As we climbed the hill over the<br />
hundreds of tracks<br />
Realization set in, and we began to<br />
shudder.<br />
We got closer to the second Hell<br />
That infinite number of tracks<br />
converged to a single deadly one<br />
Our steps became more erratic<br />
As we marched along side it, now<br />
almost to the beat of a drum.<br />
The famous brick watchtower<br />
Loomed overhead<br />
We went through the second gate<br />
And mourned for the six million<br />
dead.<br />
That single track<br />
Stretching on forever<br />
Eventually it came to an end<br />
At the destroyed crematoria, where<br />
we gathered together.<br />
The flag bearers stood<br />
On the former death machines with<br />
pride<br />
The blue stars waving in the wind<br />
Hitler, Hhnmler, and Eichman rolled<br />
over in their graves and cried.<br />
The sound of train whistles in the<br />
distance<br />
The barking dogs from next door<br />
All created the eerie atmosphere<br />
We could not at all ignore.<br />
At the service's close<br />
Yiskor, A n i MaA m in, and<br />
H atikvah were sung<br />
Not one of the six thousand could<br />
move<br />
A stillness in the air, just kept us<br />
there and hung.<br />
We planted our grave markers<br />
Each where he felt right<br />
To commemorate our family and<br />
friends lost<br />
They were everywhere, not an empty<br />
sight.<br />
Then we walked out<br />
A few at a time<br />
Some on that track<br />
But in no certain line.<br />
The testimony we saw<br />
Of the horrors that were<br />
Will remain in our hearts and minds<br />
To teach our children what did<br />
occur.
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