Madison

Madison May 1, 2012

__**The Shoah **__ They took away my identity, They are not going to take away my soul. It’s that simple, hard, emotional. What’s going on?

I leave behind memories. I couldn’t be seeing this horrible sight. I wasn’t young anymore. Why would they do this to me?

Camp, Prisoner, Screams. Total darkness, cruelty, Whatever they told us were lies. Why do they hate us?

The prisoners, they were so emaciated. <span style="display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: left;">A threatening, horrendous journey. <span style="display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: left;">I won’t go to the gas chambers. <span style="display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: left;">Their hatred was so blind.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: left;">I wasn’t young anymore. <span style="display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: left;">Things happened very slowly after that. <span style="display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: left;">“I love you” - eyes locked, <span style="display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: left;">that was the last time I saw him, <span style="display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: left;">Why did God spare me? __**<span style="display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: left;">Rationale **__  I chose the idea of a journey. From the beginning of the Holocaust to the end, people changed. Their ideas and outlooks on life changed after the Holocaust. In my poem, it starts off with a person who has already experienced the horrors and tragedy of the Holocaust, and them reflecting on it. As the poem goes on to the next stanza, they go on to say what they miss about their life, and what they see when they first arrive at the concentration camp. Next, the person describes what the actual camp is like. Their first impression of the camp. How the living conditions were inhumane and not safe for people to be in, let alone malnourished in. As life goes on in the concentration camps, peoples lives go on too. They are seeing and now understanding the true horrors of the Holocaust. They start to put into perspective, will they ever get out of the concentration camps, and if they do will they ever be the same person? As time goes on the prisoners start to comprehend the ideas of the Holocaust. They start to recognize a pattern, and what might possibly be in store for them. At the end of the poem you see the person explain what their life is like after the fact. They are question God, on their being after the Holocaust. What makes them so special? Why are they still alive? What could I have done differently to not be in this position, where they're alive and their whole family is dead? My poem was written in stanza's to make it like specific chapters in a victims life. I tried to end each of the stanza's with a question statement, because that was what the Holocaust was full of. Lots of question on why this was happening to them. Why now? I also named my poem "The Shoah" because that was another name for the Holocaust at that time. I tried to just convey emotion through each stanza.