Tag Archives: soul

Marta married an American soldier

in the front lines of her liberation

from Nazis who invaded her city

where her father’s butcher shop

did business selling cuts of meat

from the cattle raised on their farm

outside the city, somewhat removed

from the war which rounded up neighbors,

Jews, whose shops also served Dutch

neighbors who labored by their sides.

As German soldiers arrived under Nazi flags

These Dutch, Jew and non-Jew, stayed silent

coming out from their shops to watch them march by.

Soon, rumors were heard that non-Jewish shopkeepers

were considering turning Jews in by-and-by

to save and serve their own interests.

Marta’s father knew better. He knew the lie

they told themselves that such hate

could pass them all by, by cooperating.

In the morning the Jewish shops were shuttered.

The Jews had been warned and fled

to no one knew where. On a wing and a prayer

they followed twelve year old Marta

to the family farm where they hid in the barn,

protected and fed, and where they could safely hide.

The Nazis came and took their cattle, their chickens,

but did not find the Jews who were kept hidden,

kept alive. Marta’s family stayed silent, too.

Not to save themselves, nor appease their enemy;

but to save their Jewish neighbors and their own pride.

Years fell away with wizened flesh that kept them alive.

When the food was gone into Nazi bellies

she ate grass soup, and chewed leather hide

from her shoes, made into stews. It kept them alive.

By the time American soldiers took over her town

Marta was an emaciated bag of skin and bone.

She married the soldier who fed her his rations

and gave her rebirth of heart. She had kept her soul.

She had saved the Jews and her love of humanity.

But her sanity sat heavily on thin shoulders 

no longer able to stem tears nor fears.

She heard those marching feet and shouts  of “Heil !”

In forever dreams she relived the living hell

she and her Jewish neighbors survived.