Survivor Testimony - Saba Feniger's Poem

Zamosc - a Polish township – 2005

The tragedy’s reality

painfully distilled through

mounds of familiar photograhs

appeared shadowless clear;

a whole community no more.

 

Unlike once vibrant images

still present on faded murals

nothing remained of

ten thousand pulsating lives

but a beautiful synagogue.

 

Consuming flames of invader

miraculously spared the walls

and brightly painted ceiling,

they burned the township’s

congregation instead .

 

Visions of six unlived decades

of Torah celebrations brought

a sad flow of joyful tears

to eyes disbelieving truth;

youngsters danced in a circle.

 

Their thumping feet to

intoned ancestral tunes

echoed in empty spaces

of this fifteen sixty six

renaissance synagogue .

 

They’ve journeyed from afar

to stomp the ground,

to honour the memory

of extinguished lives

whose souls still hovered.

 

They wore no black kaftans,

white socks, peaked caps,

dark side locks that whirled,

neither white nor dark beards

shook to the tune ’s rhythm .

 

Some danced vigorously

letting tears  flow,

others questioned

their right to dance,

I grieved...

 

©Saba Feniger 10 June 2005.  Version V