Ring around the rosie

circled the vase that sat on our kitchen table as men burst into our house, forcing us out as they beat father over the head repeatedly, accusing him for nothing but the fact he was a Jew.

A pocket full

was less than what we could take as we grabbed what we could before we were separated and shoved into the back of trucks.  I can still hear the screaming of those around me and feel the tears that hit my sleeve while I sat curled in the back of the truck wondering what was happening to life around me.

of posies

were the only thing visible in the field around us.  They seemed to wither the closer we got to our future destination.  If only I would have realized they were a warning of what was to come...foreshadowing the loss of life in the land ahead.

Ashes

rained from the sky as we pulled up into camp.  The flames, I could see them, pouring from the tops of buildings.  Pulling, they sorted us this way and that.  Judging us like we were nothing but an item.  I was shoved into one line of thin women.

Ashes

I could smell the burning flesh the closer I got to the building with fire.  This can't be happening!  I caught a glimpse of my mother and little sister being shoved into those buildings before me.  Screams leaked from the very heart of the stone as we were forced to stand and listen to them suffer.  Mother, sister...

Ashes

MONSTERS!  MONSTERS! Do they not see?  Do they not feel the evil they are doing?  Make it stop.  Please.  Someone, anyone.  Make it stop.

We all

were being shoved like cattle into that small room, forced to stand above the bodies that lay on the cold cement ground below.

Fall

Lord, PLEASE!  This can't be happening.  How? Why? I can't breath.  The pain is intolerable, the heat is unbearable.  My lungs are burning, skin is blistering.  Where is my mother? My father? Wait, I see them now...and sister too...

Down