A little shtetl
Gravestones
Writing no longer legible
Snow begins to fall
Bringing the plants higher up
Soon they will cover the graves
Stones no longer graves
A trace lingers
Nature has its way
Of taking back what was once hers
A trace lingers
I can feel Hebrew letters
Etched in the stone
Covered in moss
A trace lingers
I wish I could read it
האשה
The lady
The only line I can make out
Does her trace linger
A spoken language
Turned to a silent language
Eventually fading to nothing
A trace lingers
An indent of where a Mezuza once laid
A Jewish star in the window
How long will they linger
We walk down the same street
The Jews walked to deaths
Not knowing these were their last breaths
Breaths
A trace lingers
Farming land sprawling on and on
Without an end in sight
The edge of the forest
Within sight
A trace lingers
In the forest
The trees stand still
Mourning
Talking without speaking
A trace lingers
What have these trees seen
Their silence echos loud
The tree speaks to me
She wants to scream
She remains silent
Silence
A trace lingers
Names of murdered are spoken
How much longer will they be spoken
How much longer until no trace lingers
I worry
But for now
A trace lingers
We cannot remain silent
Let us scream
Let us linger
For they could not
Their trace lingers
I hug the tree
She needs comfort
For what horrors has she seen
We will never understand
But still a trace lingers
Heading toward Hell on earth
Train tracks
Efficient, thought out
North south east west
A carefully designed system
A killing machine
The evil lingers
My spine shivers
I stand here in treblinka
As a free Jew
I have chosen to come see
They had no choice
They had no idea
They still linger
I walk, arm and arm
With my closest friends
Wrapped in the flag of the Jewish state
They walked to their deaths
Arm to arm with friends family strangers
All subjected to the same fate
Just for being Jews
And they linger
Is it really never again
If the hate is still here
The fear lingers
I daven mincha
On top of where the gas chambers once stood
I light a candle
There are no words
A trace lingers
I am at the edge
I gaze into the pit
Where the bodies were burned
The candle burns out
A trace lingers
900,000
A number we can’t fathom
But every. single. one.
What was going through her head
In her last moments
The thought lingers
I say kadish
I praise God
Did they praise God
Even in their last moments
How can I praise God
In a place something so terrible happened
But we are still here
We continue on
Their strength lingers
אני מאמין
How did they continue to believe
We cannot understand
We can only listen
Listen
A trace lingers
I walk out from treblinka
they could not
Through the forest
72 escaped
The earth
She trembles
She knows
She listens
A trace lingers.
A trace lingers
A Desert of Silence by Aviva Haas
How could I truly sum up four incredible months? How could I begin to describe even a single day? How do I pick one moment out of thousands- lying on the cool stone at night and talking to people who have become my sister and brothers, or going on tiyul
The Silence After (written and read during the Poland Journey)
I’m sitting on top of seventy thousand bodies, surrounded by graves stretching farther than my eyes can see, one after another. My mind refuses to comprehend it, no matter how hard I try. My heart understands what my mind can’t, there was pain here. I know there was pain here.
Making the Most of a Moment, a Second
Shared before Candlelighting in Krakow, Poland. Two months ago today was the funeral of my uncle Peter, Z”L. He passed away due to cancer at 60 years old. He was probably the most stubborn and strong minded person I’ve ever met, which is a funny contrast to his parents.