I Am Jewish

I am from Berlin, Germany,
from Jewish customs, poverty, and money.
I am from a descent of injustice.
(Discrimination, hate,
my family was turned into slaves.)
I am from big cities
back in Germany
whose freedom and scenery I remember
as if they were written on the back of my hand.

I am from holishkes and challah,
     from the best and the friendliest.
I and from the Freedom-Fighters and the Survivors
     and my Beliefs in God
from the advisors of the Kings and Queens.
I am from a religion that restored my soul
     with icons and pictures
     with a song I can sing myself.

I am from the capital,
from cities and security.
From the scars that stain my heart
     from the war that murdered my people,
to the blood that was spilled over my name.

I am from a line of German-Jews,
from the Aryans that murdered my parents,
and those whose blood saved my own.
But now I am from London,
     from English customs, wealth, and freedom.
I am from a family of respect.
(Love, honor,
I have it all here.)
My memories, however, are enslaved
     enslaved to the horrors,
     enslaved to the nightmares that haunt my dreams.

I am from tea and biscuits,
     from the brave and the valiant.
I am from the majestic and the classy,
     from the people who saved me from the Holocaust.
from the miles that separated me from my parents.
I am from hate and love
     from the family that sent me away to save me
     from the family that took me in when I needed it.

I am from my family,
from my religion and my love,
from the family that I lost,
     from the people who could not accept me,
to the pride I have of being me.

In my closet there is a box
overflowing with photos and memories
an ocean of faces, some who can be named, others that can't
to drift with me everywhere
I am from these oceans -
grown before sprouted -
fallen from the flower that guides me.
                                                                                       I am Jewish.

I come from the shadows that took me away,
     from those who snatched me from the suffocating clutches of death.
In the darkness of the night, the ones who took me away to save me,
driving away, into the unknown.
The ones who stole me from my fate to stay with my family,
but gave me another life, as a new person.

I came from the crackling fires that devoured my home,
I came from the tears my parents shed when they threw me into the arms of another family,
and from the last vision I have of them, turning their back on me to save me,
and only minutes later,
I came from the screams of my mother
("Don't leave me, Don't leave me!")
And I left her.