Doubly Wronged

After the war, thousands of Jewish children ended up in orphanages all over Europe as a result of the Holocaust. The toddlers in this children's home in Etterbeek, Belgium, survived in hiding, but their parents had been deported to Auschwitz.  US Holocaust Memorial Museum

The night of broken glass was the

opening salvo in a monstrous solution

that dispelled disbelief, the occasion

when the dire message signed, sealed

and delivered gave warning and nudged

the conscience of the world to grudgingly

permit the transport of children from

Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia

Poland shipped off to Britain then to

Israel, Australia, Canada, the United

States for haven from certain death at

the very time when doors were being

slammed in the face of Jews desperate

to escape what became the inevitable.

The passage of a lifetime where young

memories lingered on the faces of parents

their voices, their assurances, their

absolute absence from existence yet

haunting those children surviving the

curse of the Holocaust. But wait, on the

cusp of death themselves now their

lifespan ebbing they are assured the

reparations that a different Germany now

proffers, diligent post-war in rescuing

the nation from its atrocious place in

history to make amends. Cash awards

an apology yet nothing can restore lives

stolen and memories laden with sorrow.

The official view that bestowing cash

compensates the vacuum in bereaved

children's lives as brutal as the original

campaign to destroy all Jewish life.