Once the third Reich came to power,
And the red, black, and white flew from our bell tower
The end started with a simple patch, a tiny scratch, ripe for infection
The Star of David resting on my shoulder, an easy means of detection
And I adorned this star with pride and great admiration
As we all blindly stumbled towards a pit of eternal d***ation

Next came our neighbors marching in protest full of rage
Then came the ghettos, a miserable life that readied and set the stage
The reeking mountains of dead left us all longing for reprieve
Our suffering and sorrow left us ignorant to the trick in Hitler’s sleeve
As we huddled onto the train, I knew it could no longer get much worse
Soon I’d know the chancellor’s need for blood, and the plan to quench the thirst

After hours of standing and waiting the doors finally opened
We were ordered to line up, then came horrors better left unspoken
They pointed me to the right, away from my wife and newborn child
She screamed “No don’t take him from me”, broke away, and went wild
A Nazi trooper rushed in, took my son and tossed my wife aside
He tossed my boy in a fiery abyss where my soul began to die


The day’s agony had only just begun once they extinguished his life
The same guard who discarded my son came to drag away my wife
Her bellowing of anguish could be heard around for miles
A gunshot boomed and echoed now her body lie buried in the piles,
Of corpses waiting to be burned, hopefully their souls departed
So they wouldn’t have to witness the he** I had only just started

With nothing left to hold, I knew only hunger and “Arbeit Macht Frei”
After a few weeks I found out it meant “A Slave til you Die”
Labor insufferable, made only harder by the food fit for mice
Humiliation incomparable, public shavings to rid us of “lice”
Still, I kept fighting to live, for my son and those slaughtered
But my soul was slowly withering like a plant never watered

The two years I toiled in camps dragged on for eternity
My demise inched closer each day, I knew this with certainty
Thankfully, the Red Army could move faster than the reaper
But the wicked man had wanted us dead, and he was a promise keeper
Then on a bitter winter night with the Russians knocking on the door
We were marched towards the nightmare that Hitler had in store

A march turned to sprint and if you dared to slow to a trot
A cold-blooded Nazi would make sure you stayed there to rot
In a daze we all ran until our feet began to blister and bleed
A run to kill a stallion, the strongest of steed
We stopped for a moment; near death we collapsed
Many slept and faded away, the pity of a missing God perhaps?

Even once the march ended we had to board another death train
We were all little Able, leaving the weather to be the wicked boy, Cain
I can’t understand how I was able to live through the ride
Yet again it seems I have left my death clock defied
For the first time in years, the odds went in my favor
The memory of my son, I think, my only life saver

One of the few who survived with me was a ghostly young boy
The gruesome death of his father left his soul broken, destroyed
All the will to live had vanished and fled from him
Upon seeing this, the little light I had left had finally gone dim
Odd to me that a slow death by torture couldn’t cripple my will
It took the sight of a cratered boy, to bring an urge for a cyanide pill

This boy had been with me the whole time and never been affected before
Now he lost his last thing to cling to, living seemed but a chore
This reminded me of all that had been taken and robbed
Realizing I really have lost it all caused a heavy-hearted sob
Even when we were rescued, I knew Hitler had still won
He bulldozed my foundations, my structure, my son, my wife
Leaving ripping a festering gash in my soul from a cold-jagged knife