A poem meant to be read after touring the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., United States. Also can be read without touring, but has greater effect after touring.
If you tour, I encourage you to keep your identification slip. Don't throw it away. You are holding the life events of a person, a person someone once loved, in your hand. Keep it. Keep it safe. And if you find one on the floor, pick it up, and keep that too. Lives aren't meant to be discarded. We all should know.
That's it.
I've reached the end.
I've traveled through that photo-filled corridor,
Stopping more than I care to recount.
Stared in mute horror at the things ahead.
Ran through the grief-infested halls,
Not able to stop and pay my respects.
I've seen the stories of the children.
Remember the children.
I've seen that phrase over,
And over,
And over.
Every time I stopped.
Stopped for a moment, just a quick one,
To silently cry,
And remember.
But now it's all over.
I'm done,
I've made it through.
Now all that's left is a room.
A room of reflection, they call it,
For those who, they say,
Need... Time
After seeing the soul-scarring things from above.
It's really a room of realisation.
That's what they need to say.
A room to realise what you have seen,
To know
That humans did this to each other.
That they shoved others in chambers,
Then murdered them.
That there were firing squads,
Yellow stars,
Killing camps,
Medical malpractice,
All because people were different.
It's not right, and never will be.
In the great round room,
This is what you muse over.
What you absorb,
And then you absolve to yourself
To make sure
That it never happens again.
Ever.
And in that great room of reflection,
Even you only retain just a little bit,
I only ask that you remember one thing.
Remember the children.
Remember the lives that were cut short,
The families that never had the chance to be.
The innocent wailing of a baby,
Not knowing
What is inevitably coming next.
Remember the fear.
Remember the pain.
If anything, remember it.
Because that is our greatest loss from this Holocaust.
The children.
The children who never got to live the lives that they should have.
The children with the stars.
Remember them.
Remember the children.
Remember them all, in that sorrow-filled room of reflection,
Of realisation.
Remember.
