I have heard the words before:
“Concentration camp.”
But we never thought we would be in one
Constantly hearing shots from a gun.

We lived peacefully in Poland before they came,
Screaming and shouting that we were to blame.
“What did we do?”
My mother cried.

We did nothing wrong,
Except for being Jewish,
And off we went
Without consent.

When we got there,
Separated from each other, which was not fair,
My mother asked where we were.
A man with blond hair and blue eyes replied:
“Keep walking you filthy Jew!”

So we kept walking,
In a herd with hundreds of people just like us.
And into a room we went,
Where on the ceiling I saw a large vent.

My mother said that she smelled something strange,
Then suddenly she fell down as if she had been shot at a range.
For crying had no more use than nothing,
But I couldn’t stop myself from doing it anyway.

I joined my mother on the floor,
And I seemed no better off than her.
Everyone was coughing and almost dead,
But then something happened that was even better than nice warm bread.

The smell went away and the door burst ajar,
Oh did we hate that smell that was sort of like tar.
Men came in armed with guns,
But they did not fire; they said they were here to save us.

We walked outside to see,
Many dead men with swastikas on their arms,
Laying on the cold hard ground,
And our breathing became lighter by a pound.

The Americans had saved us.
We then were put into a bus,
Which went to a large ship,
That took us to the United States.

We arrived there within weeks,
And given a small sum of money to help us get on our feet.
This is our new home,
Free from evil Nazis that roam.