Mama and Papa
Were naive.
Even after the Aktion,
All they’d seen,
All that death,
They still couldn’t believe.
The Germans are a civilized people,
Papa said.
Bach, Beethoven, and Wagner
Were German,
Mama said.
And Goethe, Nietzsche, and Karl Marx,
Papa said,
How could such a society
Produce such masters
And such monsters?
Still,
Mama said in a whisper,
We must protect Leybl.
Papa nodded.
The rest of us are safe,
They won’t hurt women, children, or old men like me,
But Leybl is young, smart, strong.
We must protect Leybl.
I wondered,
Who would protect
Mushke and me?
But I did not ask.