God did not
Answer my prayers
When the Germans
Came,
Like a swarm of locusts,
To Białystok.
Once a thriving city,
More Jewish than Polish,
With Yiddish theaters,
Schools,
Newspapers.
We’d lived happily
In a ghetto
Of our own making
Surrounded by Jews.
Within a month
Of the Germans’ arrival,
We were fenced in
With no food.
No money.
Sharing a two-room apartment
With two old ladies
We did not know.
With two thin mattresses
To share between the five of us.
Papa,
Mama,
Mushke,
Me,
And Leybl on the hard wooden floor.
Mushke complained
When Leybl snored.
Hush, hush,
Mama said.
He needs his sleep.
Mushke and I needed sleep too,
But I stayed quiet,
Like Mama said.
Papa and Leybl
Worked at night
At a factory
In the ghetto,
Cleaning up after the workers
Had left for the day.
I worked
Outside the ghetto
Cleaning,
Washing floors,
Scrubbing toilets.
I did what I was told.
On our sleeves.
Yellow equilateral triangles,
Stars of David.
Pricking my finger
With every stitch.
We lived miserably
In a ghetto
Not of our own making
Surrounded by Nazis.
Yet I thanked God
For keeping us
All together.