To My Daughter: On the Holocaust

by Dr. David Mandler

“To My Daughter: On the Holocaust”
by David Mandler

What words can I use to tell my father’s story
To you my little Rachel with that angel smile?
What words can be used now when the only glory
In that time of demons was but empty style?

No words. Clearly, no words can scream out the dull pain
My grandmother sweated…locked inside that train:
Quaking in holy labor, shaken to the core

With no space to stretch out or lie down on the floor.

No words. Clearly, no words will ever suffice
To describe the agony reflected in her eyes.
Why were they all packed into those dark cattle cars?
Why, like weeds on garbage, grew those yellow stars?

What words can be used to represent six million?
Words like empty bottles line up in my head—
Burned, gassed, starved to death, shot…floating in vermilion
Images of horror, dry, abstract and dead.

No words.  No dead pictures, nor the balm of rhyming
Help me rise above this sentimental drag.
Even in a black hole we seek the silver lining—-
Searching for a diamond in the body bag.

Oh, I cannot tell you how my Zaide’s daughters
Gasped for air and clawed their dying mother’s skin.
Nor will I attempt to justify God’s orders
Words swallow up reasons. I dare not begin.

Still, the silver lining coils itself around me
Like the snake that charmed Eve all those years ago.
I can’t handle darkness—can’t escape my ego
Grasping after straws of positivity.

Some shone through that darkness, burning bushes, firm, torn.
Life emerged from darkness: my father was born.

In unbearable heat.
In a cattle car.
On July 2nd, 1944.

No words. No words ever
No rhymes how so clever
Will suffice to tell the story of this crime.

I know I cannot tell you—I shout I cannot tell you
I sob Rachel because I know that soon, soon I must tell you.

When you possess our story in but a little while
I pray your face retains that awesome angel smile.

April 24th, 2014
© David Mandler
Revised on April 15, 2015
David Mandler’s short story, “The Loft,” is available through amazon.com.