During this past week’s ceremony at Auschwitz to mark the 70th anniversary of its liberation, Menachem Z. Rosensaft penned a poem to commemorate the memorial, which he shares with JBC readers below.
Auschwitz-Birkenau, January 27, 2015
no longer visible flames
still burn
will always burn
have burned my brother’s tiny body
for seventy-one years
five months, twenty-three days
since he became only a memory
my, our mother’s memory
now my inheritance
in a huge tent we sit
three thousand of us
warmly dressed
and I see where
my mother was unable to kiss
her child
one last time
I cannot feel him shiver
I cannot hear him cry
I cannot smell the gas
perhaps I am breathing
his ashes
Menachem Z. Rosensaft is the editor of the recently published book God, Faith & Identity from the Ashes: Reflections of Children and Grandchildren of Holocaust Survivors (Jewish Lights Publishing).
Related Content:
- Read Menachem Z. Rosensaft’s posts for the Visiting Scibe
- Reading List: Holocaust Fiction and Nonfiction
- Reading List: Auschwitz
Menachem Z. Rosensaft is General Counsel of the World Jewish Congress, and editor of The World Jewish Congress, 1936 – 2016 (World Jewish Congress, 2017).
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