Because this is the week of my parents’ death (in ‘85 and ‘87), I was particularly moved to receive from a wonderful friend who has a company called Facts & Files
(Historical Research Institute Berlin) a special gift. It was the addresses of my grandparents who lived and worked next door to each other in Lida on Market Square.
And here is, in their memory and in memory of the 71rst anniversary of the night of the broken glass, a poem to them about the first of September, 1939. They managed to leave Danzig just in time.
NIGHT TRAVEL
for my parents
On that night in Danzig the trains did not run
You sat in the bus station till almost dawn
knowing that if you could not get out,
the invaders would find you, grind you among the first
under their heels.
Toward morning an announcement came of a bus,
and without knowing where it would go
you raced to the stop.
But the Nazis were there first, and you watched
as they finished their search
checking each traveller for papers,
jewelry, a Jewish nose.
Among the passengers you recognized
a familiar face a German woman sitting
with someone else you’d seen
in the neighborhood.
They winked a greeting,
waited for the soldiers to leave,
and jumped out
pushing you up in their place.
Thus you escaped to Berlin, remaining alive
by keeping silent through the long train ride
from Berlin to Cologne in a car filled with
staring German soldiers
And arrived the next day in Holland,
black with fear and transportation.
