The following poem was written by Hilda Lebedun and shared as part of the Memory Project.
It is a Wednesday afternoon
in April.
and I am sitting
in the sunshine
in the “righteous people’s
memorial garden”
surrounded by beautiful
spring flowers,
tulips and pansies.
Pansies, according to legend,
represent memory.
Memories are flooding
my brain.
It is April 1942,
the month of my tragedy,
when I was captured
by the Nazis,
when my life and
the lives of many others
turned upside down at
Auschwitz-Birkenau.
After three years of fear,
degradation, and deprivations
in subhuman conditions,
it was April again when
I came out of the
ashes of the holocaust.
I realized that
only by the grace of God had
I survived.
Many ashes can
create new life.
I never question the power
of the God of many people
who kept giving me hope
against all odds
for this new life
He gave to me.
Helped me not to
poison myself with hate
and yet
never to forget!!
I smile through my tears
and enjoy again
sunshine, rain, wind, and snow,
flowers and
the greening of the land.
Remember and honor
all my loved ones
and all the others who
were lost,
murdered in their prime!
And in their memory
I humbly ask God
to please
keep on healing me
and to help me
remember His grace
and blessings
for me and my children.
He gave this to me,
and I forever
love and honor the one
he took
most recently from me,
the father of my children
—Hilda Lebedun (2007)