Out of Chaos: Hidden Children Remember the Holocaust

Child Survivors

3 Child Survivors Marguerite Lederman Mishkin You say we are not survivors We were not in a concentration camp We were too young We did not suffer We did not understand We don’t remember We were not affected We are the lucky ones. We hid in homes We hid in convents We hid in orphanages We hid in basements We hid in cellars We hid in haystacks We hid in barns We hid in cabinets We hid in fields We hid in holes We hid in sewers Yet we were not in concentration camps. We saw what no child should see Our eyes betrayed us We saw people wearing yellow stars We saw people being killed We saw people being humiliated We saw people being beaten We saw people being forced onto trains We saw our parents being taken away We sought to be invisible We learned not to look and not to see Yet we were too young. We heard what no child should hear Our ears betrayed us We heard screams in the middle of the night We heard screams of pain We heard harsh words flung at us We heard words of hatred 4 Out of Chaos We heard words of disdain We learned not to hear We learned to scream in silence Yet we did not suffer. We learned to answer to foreign-sounding names We unlearned our religion We learned new customs We learned to tolerate unknown food We learned to pretend We learned to deceive We learned to be charlatans We learned different ways of praying We learned to call strangers by names reserved for family We learned new languages Yet we did not understand. We felt abandoned We felt unloved We felt deserted We felt unwanted We felt we deserved what was happening to us We felt stupid We felt ugly We felt dirty We felt scared We felt like damaged merchandise We felt unready We felt undeserving We felt powerless Yet we don’t remember. We lost our parents We lost our relatives We lost our religion We lost our identity We lost our innocence We lost our childhood We lost our security We lost our trust We lost our country We lost our language We lost our confidence We lost our sense of self Yet we were not affected. child survivors 5 In hunger we tasted our favorite food once again In thirst we drank cool spring water In rags we dressed in our finery In cold we covered up with the feather bed that our mother had made In loneliness we invented imaginary friends In church we heard the Hebrew prayers In boredom we read our most beloved books In sadness we remembered joy In drabness we envisioned beauty In silence we heard music In the air we wrote our life stories In the depth of winter we planted spring flowers In fear we felt our parents’ love In our time of need we learned to comfort ourselves Yet we are the lucky ones. We may not have been in a concentration camp But we were not too young To understand To remember To suffer To grieve To imagine To be changed into strangers to our former selves Lucky perhaps but Transformed in the crucible Of survival. ...