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Study and Theory/
Holocaust Remembrance Day

Abba Kovner

We will remember

We will remember our sisters and brothers, the houses of the town and the houses of the country

The streets of the town that flowed like rivers

And the solitary inn with a guest

The old man with the portrait of his face

And the mother in her kerchief

The girl with her plaits

The baby, the baby

 

The thousands of Jewish communities with the families

Every Jewish ethnic community

Which were defeated in the slaughter in Europe by the Nazi grave-diggers

The man who suddenly shouted and with his shout died

The woman who hugged her baby to her heart and her arms fell away

The baby whose fingers were searching for the mother’s nipple and she is blue and cold.

 

The feet

The feet that wanted shelter and there was no more choice

And those who closed their hands into a fist

The fist that covered the iron

The iron that became a weapon for the vision, the desperation and the uprising

And they are loved

And they have eyes wide open

And they threw their souls against the hands that were too short to save them

We will remember the day

The day in the afternoon

The sun that rose over the pyre of blood

The sky which was high and silent

We will remember the mounds of ash under the flowering gardens

The living will remember the dead

Because they are here before us.

 

Here the eyes are gazing around and around

And to my silence, to my silence until our life will be befitting to remember them

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