Acknowledgement

My parents taught me not to expect much from the world.

My parents taught me to expect everything from the world.

My parents always said: Even the best friends we had betrayed us.

My parents always said: Our best friends shared their bread with us.

Before the war there were nine million.

Only 75,000 outlived

The Nazi concentration camps.

Two were my parents.

My parents taught me I am special.

My parents taught me I am like others.

My parents always said: Neither of you was supposed to be born.

My parents always said: You are my life.

Hundreds of people live through me.

Lives cut short by war.

My grandmother whose name I share

Lives through me.

My parents taught me to be proud.

My parents taught me to be humble.

My parents always said: We live in a free country.

My parents always said: The night screams were nothing.

I know I carry slippery things

More dangerous than a shadow inside me.

I hear voices I have never met.

I am a child of the Holocaust.

June, 1992