Paper Hearts

The Germans Arrived

in June of 1941

the beginning of summer

when hope

should have

hung in blue-filled skies.

But hope burned away

in the heat of summer.

First came the yellow armbands

branding all us Jews.

Then came the fences

closing out the rest of the world.

Then came the refugees

Jews from neighboring villages and countryside

weighed down with wagons of belongings

herded inside the wire

with no houses in which to live.

Then came the other family

assigned to share our home.

Ten people

six in my family

four in the other

crammed in a three-room house.

Then came the confiscations

anything of value

jewelry

money

even Mama and Tata’s wedding bands.

Then came the shortages of

food

water

medicine

jobs

coal

firewood.

I was fortunate.

Even though

school was forbidden,

at seventeen

I had a job outside the ghetto

at a small bank

where people hated me

because I was smart

spoke different languages

Polish

Russian

German

was a Jew.

Then

even that was taken away.

You cannot work here anymore,

I was told.

No Jews.

Oleg Broz’s father smiled

as I walked out.

Then

came

the

transports.