Holocaust Memorial Day in Stamford - poetry reading - video Dailymotion

Holocaust Memorial Day in Stamford - poetry reading by Stamford Poet Laureate Caroline Avnit

Transcript

00:00insight. Weak limbed and fatigued they march, the line dragging on through dust and pain,

00:08smoke rising from Auschwitz crematoria, where you'd never see your parents again. You wore

00:14your number on your forearm, the yellow star marking your life as a Jew, herded like animals

00:21into the cattle car, knowing no one was coming to save you. The blood of the innocent spilt like

00:29water bled from young lives cut desperately short, immobilized by hunger you sorely comply,

00:37frozen with fear that you'd be caught. The last you saw her was in the cramped carriage where

00:43the brave young doctor would lead. Young men took their turn standing as those sitting were most in

00:50need. Did you peer through the gaps in the slats? Did you try and call out to safety?

00:57As days drew into cold nights of exhaustion, in bartered sleep, did you dream of being free?

01:05As the cattle car's journey nears an end, a young mother screams her baby is dead. The rabbi

01:11wraps the little body in his prayer shawl, no empty words of comfort, just tears shed.

01:19There is no time past that's great enough, no revenge can pay the price of pain,

01:25nor forgiveness heals such deep wounds, but the world bears the blood and shame.

01:32Schemes of such nefarious men whose hearts so hardened by hate change the course of many a

01:39lifespan, tempted by power, betrayed by fate. For all the souls so brutally murdered, we cry out

01:48until the end of our days, have we learned from our past mistakes? Will we ever change our ways?