In Memoriam and With Profound Respect

From today's Writer's Almanac ...

April 19 It was on this day in 1943 that an uprising began in the Warsaw ghetto. There were about 300,000 Jews in Warsaw, and thousands more refugees streamed in from smaller towns. In 1940, the Nazis built a wall around a small section of the city and forced all the Jews into it. Conditions were horrible. In the winter, there were fuel shortages, and people succumbed to influenza. A small resistance movement began to organize. Then, in 1942, the Nazis deported more than 300,000 Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the concentration camp in Treblinka. Reports of mass murder leaked back to the ghetto, and the resistance movement gained momentum. And on this day in 1943, the first day of Passover, hundreds of German soldiers entered the ghetto in rows of tanks, planning to destroy the ghetto in three days. But resistance fighters fought back, and they held on for almost a month.





And one of my favorite poems ... printed in the March 25, 1991 issue of The New Yorker ...



The Yellow Star That Goes With Me

Sometimes when I’m really thirsty, I mean really dying of thirst
For five minutes
Sometimes when I board a train
Sometimes in December when I’m absolutely freezing

For five minutes
Sometimes when I take a shower
Sometimes in December when I’m absolutely freezing
Sometimes when I reach from steam to towel, when the bed has soft, blue sheets

Sometimes when I take a shower
For twenty minutes, the white tiles dripping with water
Sometimes when I reach from steam to towel, when the bed has soft, blue sheets
Sometimes when I split an apple, or when I’m hungry, painfully hungry

For twenty minutes, the white tiles dripping with water
As the train passes Chambers Street. We’re all crammed in like laundry
Sometimes when I split an apple, or when I’m hungry, painfully hungry
For half an hour, sometimes when I’m on a train

As it passes Chambers Street. We’re all crammed in like laundry
It’s August. The only thing to breathe is everybody’s stains
For half an hour, sometimes when I’m on a train
Or just stand along the empty platform

It’s August. The only thing to breathe is everybody’s stains
Sometimes when I board a train
Or just stand along the empty platform―
Sometimes when I’m really thirsty, I mean really dying of thirst

-- Jessica Greenbaum

Jessica Greenbaum was born in Brooklyn, where she now lives with her husband and two daughters. She is the poetry editor for upstreet (www.upstreet-mag.org).