I was raised in suburbia
without stigmata.
Jews and Christians roamed
a land once inhabited
by cucumbers, wheat and potatoes.

The wheat became white bread
as did the schools and playgrounds
but soon the fields were no more.

We played soldier killing krauts & nips.
We played cowboys and Indians.
I always wanted to be the Indian
Native American Jew.

We learned to kiss at parties
playing games of post office &
spin the bottle.

Not once did we play
CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER OR
FRIEND.

Our mothers taught
us to get along
with each other
and not be harbingers
of secret hates.

Except the boy down
the street
had parents who hated
Jews
&
Negroes.

There were no Negroes
in the neighborhood
so they centered
their hate on the Jews.

My mother did not understand
ANTI-SEMITISM. She spoke
perfectly pure ghetto before
it was popular.

But that did not stop
the Nazis from being intolerant.
The only museums they had
were dedicated to KRISTALLNACHT
a night of pogrom.

What’s a mother to do?

Today when I think of the Holocaust
I see the bodies piled like timber wood
and the sweetish smoke of burning flesh
the stripping of consciousness
along with gold fillings and JEWelry.

But Mom did not know that the people
down the street hated her because of her blood
and the hate hand-me-downed to their offspring
who wore HH tattooed on his red-haired forehead.
He prevailed that hate through 12 years of school.

Today the president of Iran says the Holocaust
never happened. I challenge him to walk with me
through my childhood and through the streets of
Terazin. Perhaps he can come with me to Auschwitz.

I will make sure he takes out his nose filters &
earplugs, removes his blindfold.

Larry Jaffe