The following poem was written by Miriam Spiegel Raskin and shared as part of the Memory Project.

Friends ask when I write,

Again? Again, the Holocaust?

Aren’t you ever done with that?

I guess not, I say. It’s with me,

like a jagged scar that doesn’t

heal but stings and aches, forever.

Novembers specially open up

the scabs, images of Kristallnacht

rising to freeze my heart – black-shirted,

black-hearted SS men trampling

our poor belongings, — vivid as ever,

frightful as ever.

Forget it, yes. That’s what they say.

Even my mother urged it. Forget.

Why not? We suffered no harm,

running off with our lives and

some of our things and, really,

what’s the point?

We were safe soon enough, though without

our fatherland, our relatives,

our innocence. Can I really forget

that horrific November day and

blot the painful years that followed

from memory? Who will tell me how?

by Miriam Raskin

[12/25/11; rev. 02/10/12]