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"Forget You Not"™
 

Picture (with Poem) of a Small Boy Captured
During the April-May 1943 Warsaw Revolt

Small Polish Boy Captured
My God, How Could You Have Failed So Miserably?



To the Little Polish Boy Standing With His Arms Up
by
Peter L. Fischl

.
Little Polish Boy
I.

I would like to be an artist
So I could make a Painting of you
Little Polish Boy

Standing with your Little hat on your head
The Star of David on your coat
Standing in the ghetto with your arms up as many Nazi machine guns pointing at you

I would make a monument of you and the world who said nothing

I would like to be a composer so I could write a concerto of you
Little Polish Boy

Standing with your Little hat on your head
The Star of David on your coat Standing in the ghetto with your arms up as many Nazi machine guns pointing at you

I would write a concerto of you and the world who said nothing

.
 
II.

I am not an artist
But my mind had painted
a painting of you

Ten Million Miles High is the Painting
so the whole universe can see you Now
Little Polish Boy

Standing with your Little hat
on your head
The Star of David
on your coat
Standing in the ghetto with your arms up as many Nazi machine guns pointing at you

And the World who said nothing

I'll make this painting so bright
that it will blind the eyes
of the world who saw nothing

Ten billion miles high will be the monument
so the whole universe can remember of you
Little Polish Boy

Standing with your Little hat
on your head
The Star of David
on your coat

.
III.

Standing in the ghetto
with your arms up
as many Nazi machine guns pointing at you

And the monument will tremble so the blind world
Now will know

What fear is in the darkness

The world
Who said nothing

I am not a composer
but I will write a composition
for five trillion trumpets
so it will blast the ear drums
of this world

The world's
Who heard nothing

I
am
Sorry
that
It was you
and
Not me

.

Poem from the Archives of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Los Angeles, California, USA
Copyright©1994 by Peter L. Fischl
.
Photo credit: Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi War Crimes, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives.