Holocaust Poetry

SORRY I APOLOGIZE FOR THE WHITE BACKGROUND!!!!! don't know how to get rid






Holocaust
by Barbara Sonek

We played, we laughed
we were loved.
We were ripped from the arms of our
parents and thrown into the fire.
We were nothing more than children.
We had a future. We were going to be lawyers, rabbis, wives, teachers, mothers. We had dreams, then we had no hope. We were taken away in the dead of night like cattle in cars, no air to breathe smothering, crying, starving, dying. Separated from the world to be no more. From the ashes, hear our plea. This atrocity to mankind can not happen again. Remember us, for we were the children whose dreams and lives were stolen away.

1. What is your initial reaction to this poem? Extreme sadness and empathy for the children who died during this horrific war. It makes me feel extremely sad as it is almost saying that the innocence of these children was cruelly taken away from them.
2. How does the author use 'we' in this poem? She is trying to put across that it was not just a handful or one but there were thousands of children that died for no right cause. She is trying to put across that they were practically all family as they had to look after each other to get through this. She makes it personal and says that she was not alone, there were other children.
3. What are the verbs used in the first sentence? Played, laughed and loved. This is what children do. It is showing that they were doing nothing wrong they were simply being normal children. They did not deserve and did not know of what was to come. c
4. What are the verbs used in the second sentence? How do they contrast with those used in the first sentence? Ripped and thrown. This is very different to the verbs used in the first sentence as this to me does not portray a child's life. Ripped and thrown is not something children come across very often. It also shows the brutality of the Nazi forces and the lack of mercy.
5. What effect does the listing of 'lawyers, rabbis, wives, teachers, mothers'? What is it meant to signify? It is meant to signify that these children had a lot of life left in them. They could have done brilliant things with their lives and they could have had magnificent and normal lives but instead their lives were destroyed over nothing. It was all ripped away from them in a blink of an eye, that's it, their lives ruined. Also all of these jobs have a high level of dignity and they are everyday jobs. They are not saying they want to be rich or famous. They are just saying that they want a job and they want to be a mother. They just want to live and grow old.
6. What simile is used in the poem and what effect does it have? 'Like cattle in cars,' this also has a huge effect as it shows that they were not treated like human beings they were treated 'like cattle'. This means that they were herded and prodded and tossed around not as humans but as cattle, that's all the Nazi's saw them as.
7. How has the poet represented herself in the last sentence? She has represented herself as being one of these children which I do not know is actual fact or just to add depth to the story but it is still a very strong ending sentence to her poem.
8. If you could communicate to this person, a victim of the Holocaust, what would you want to say? What do you feel that you must do in your life as a response to this poem? I would tell them to be strong and that it was not in vain. There are men constantly fighting for them and that all of the world is wanting them to be safe, happy and free. It will not be long and the majority of the world is very much fighting for them.