A Lost Soul | Teen Ink

A Lost Soul

August 12, 2010
By emmydellinger BRONZE, Coronado, California
emmydellinger BRONZE, Coronado, California
3 articles 0 photos 0 comments

This is the story of a girl, too young for this pain
But now she’s a statistic, one of millions slain
Her story is tragic, there is good and bad
But in the end it is merely sad

Out in the garden she plays with her dolls
When she hears her mother’s frantic calls
Men come in a noisy black car
They stomp in, and give them their stars

Her father is angry at the pretty yellow cloth
Mother sews them on in a heart breaking sloth
Her little red coat with a pretty new star
Swollen with pride she goes out, but not far

There are handsome young men, who smile with delight
When her little red coat comes into sight
They see the star and laugh in her face
She cries and runs away in disgrace

The little girls birthday comes and goes
Just like Father Winter’s first powdered snows
She quickly learns of the disgrace of her mark
And learns to hide from the men in the dark

One day father says its time for their flight
She tries to look brave with all of her might
To the ghetto! is the march, with all of their things
They settle in their home when the doorbell rings

So many people come from far and wide
But they all seem to be on the same side
“Home, home is where we want to be”
If only they could possible see

One night she hears a distant scream
She tries to pretend it’s only a dream
Then heavy boots fall down were she resides
She goes for the floorboards where everyone hides.

Under the floorboards she doesn’t breathe
She knows if she speaks it’s only her death
The Nazi soldier finds them, father starts to fight
Her mother pushes her out of their sight

They are taken away and the shots ring out
They are gone forever, she has no doubt
She was “little princess” their pride and joy
Now they lay on the ground like a broken toy

She is taken away by big Nazi men
Never to see her parents again
They put her on a train full of other women
All look like mothers, so sad and stricken

They arrive at the camp
She is branded with a stamp
They shave her hair
And strip her courage bare

Skeletons work the land, they work on the soil
The soldiers in blue watching them toil
the camp’s smokestacks pours out black death
It pours in her lungs, choking her breath

Children who laughed, their eyes sullen and sunken
Their small bodies so pained and shrunken
Sometimes they fall; their cries call out
Their cries fall on deaf ears, with no doubt

She finds her work grueling and energy she lacks
Then one day the guard gives her a smack
She falls unable and tries to rise with all of her might
In the end she loses the fight

They take her to the woods, the end is near
And still the little girl feels no fear
She feels her parents and lets everything go
She lets no fear show

Until the very end
She dies without a friend
A lover,
An Indian summer,
A mother,
A father,
Or a name.

A statistic that’s all she will be
Our little number 2553.


The author's comments:
I wrote this poem after watching Schindlers List. The girl in the little red coat really touched me so I wanted to write a poem about her. What happened in the Holocaust was one of our world worst times and the way Schindler's List portrays what happened at the concentration camp's was horrific.

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