If I could tell you my story
Would you give me ear?
Can you suffer details so gory
Would you shed a tear?

Will you remember the faces
Of those you do not know?
From all walks of life, places
Who carry burden of woe.

Did you hear the cries in the town square
Where they gathered my kin?
Do you cringe at the thought, too much to bear
Does it crawl under your skin?

Did you see the large ditch we dug in the forest?
In a row we were lined.
It did not matter who was richest or poorest.
Did you pay mind?

Did you hear about the showers we were to take
After traveling so long?
Did you hear about ovens, but there was nothing to bake?
Something seemed wrong.

The order was given, the gallows was sprung.
The bodies went swaying.
Their Necks snapped, no air reached their lung.
Survivors were praying.

The order was given, the trigger was pulled.
The bodies went falling.
A mass grave was writhing, filling with blood
From the dead and dying.

The order was given, the nozzle was turned.
The bodies went laying.
An oven awaiting, they were to be burned.
A colored world graying.

If I could tell you my story would you remember me?
Would you give me ear or ignore?
Could you suffer details too gory to see?
Please shed a tear, I implore.

In memory of the six million plus Jews who were brutally and ruthlessly murdered in the Holocaust,
to my grandparents (may they rest in peace) who were the survivors and taught us never to forget,
to my generation who carry the burden of witnessing the last of the survivors to pass away,
and to my children who must learn and retell what they are taught so that it will never happen again.