a teenage survivor of
Auschwitz-Birkenau - remembers:

"53 years ago I stood on this very same,
forever cursed and blood soaked grounds,
facing Mengele, the 'angel of death'.
While I cannot remember his face,
I do vividly recall his thumbs.

I was 15 and a half years old."

I was given but a few minutes
to tell you that I stood here
with all the others,
paralyzed with fear.

to be selected,
to be torn
from my mother and father,
to be separated,
to be orphaned,
to be shaved,
to be degraded,
to be humiliated,
to be abandoned,
to be intimidated,
to be tortured,
to be starved,
to be dehumanized,
to be terrorized,
to be worked to death,
to be gassed,
to be burned,
to be annihilated

I have but a few minutes,
to reflect
to collect my thoughts

a few minutes,
to struggle with my feelings

a few minutes to cry,

a few minutes,
to control my emotions

a few minutes,
to remember
all those who perished -
my parents, four siblings
cousins and friends

a few minutes,
to remember
all the mothers and babies,
toddlers and the old
who -
walked into the so called "showers"
and out as smoke

a few minutes,
to remind all of you who came here
and the world at large
how the "Final Solution" and
Auschwitz-Birkenau converged

a few minutes,
to tell you about five gas chambers
that could and did kill
thousands per day,

a few minutes,
to tell you about the stench and the smoke
oozing out of five chimneys
night and day

a few minutes,
to tell you about the ashes
dumped into this lake,

a few minutes,
to tell you about the six million
innocent Jews
so brutally murdered

a few minutes,
to talk about the other
five millions
also annihilated

a few minutes,
to tell you -
breathe the air carefully here,
for you never know...
the hopeless sighs may linger on
still

a few minutes,
to tell you - be very quiet
so you can hear
the anguished cries
left behind

a few minutes,
to tell you - listen to the hidden messages
of heart beats,

a few minutes,
to tell you - "never again"
will not be realized
unless we will it
with all our might

a few minutes,
to tell you that hope lies
not in the divide
but
in the coming together
of societies free of hatred and
and hunger

a few minutes,
to tell you that in Israel
or any other country you call "home"
"never again"
will happen only
when most will have social justice
a fair share of goods
and children have
full stomachs
and loving parents

in a few minutes,
in a few hundred years
in a few millennia,
it cannot be
done
unless we Jews
together with the
rest of humanity
will it
as ONE.