LEIZER POLENZWEIG WAS A HAPPY BOY
squealing with the others on Sabbath mornings when all 
    five kids would jump up and dive and tumble into the 
    down-filled mountains on their parents' enormous bedstead 
    with the gleaming carved dark wood headboard, the huge 
    white glazed tile stove still warm from yesterday's fire; 
going to public and Hebrew school, kicking rocks 
    across paving stones or plowing through piles of 
    snow on Gesia Street and feeling his mouth water 
    as he passed by the bakery and inhaled 
    the fresh bread scent and imagined the big, round, black 
    loaves coming out of the ovens 
    and playing soccer with Catholic friends 
    and sneaking a bite of forbidden food (except for High Holy Days) 
    and being rather pleased that God didn't strike him dead; 
helping out in the family store 
    that smelled of salami and coal dust and home 
    where his mom worked hard every day and big 
    sister Esther was starting to keep the books and 
    he would hide and play in the boy sized house 
    he had hammered together of scrap boards and nails 
    right next to the cash register until someone called him 
    and he became his mother's mighty, strong-armed helper 
    proudly shoveling potatoes or coal; 
feeding and grooming the horses for his father's wagons and 
    riding bareback and getting into trouble and dirt and squirting 
    hot, frothy, luscious milk from a neighbor's cow's teat 
    into his mouth and at the mewing cats 
    and visiting his grandparents on their farm 
    and teasing his little sisters who seemed to spend most 
    of their time in the live-in Catholic housekeeper's arms 
    or attached to her ankle-length skirt, as she polished 
    and scrubbed and cooked; 
chasing yellow butterflies and bumblebees 
    with his younger brother 
    on the soft, green, vast, and fragrant land 
    round their white, two-story summer home. 

LEIZER POLENZWEIG WAS A BUSY BOY
building a fine brick wall to make a hiding place 
    between rooms where all seven of them 
    would pile together through the narrow access hole 
    behind the cupboard, holding their breath like terrified mice 
    when they heard the Germans march up the stairs 
    pounding on doors and barking staccato orders; 
smuggling meat by carefully spreading a stinking concoction 
    of horse and cow manure on the canvas that was 
    stretched on top of horse meat in the wagon, and ever so 
    innocently guiding the load through the Warsaw 
    streets, right under the noses of Nazi guards, pulled 
    by the one horse the Germans had let them keep for the moment; 
crisscrossing the city in the underground sewers 
    linked through a tunnel he had helped dig, trying 
    to avoid the swirling, foul-smelling liquid that 
    reflected the flickering candle or kerosene flame and the 
    grenades that exploded with deafening force; 
    deftly negotiating the sewer labyrinth to retrieve food packages 
    from outside the ghetto, left hidden by gentile friends, until 
    the day the Germans were waiting at the exit hole 
    with their superior smiles and gleaming black boots and shiny 
    buttons and guns 
    and made them all line up neatly against the wall, 
    shooting whom they wished and 
    letting the others go. 

LEIZER POLENZWEIG WAS A SILENT BOY
watching Rifka his mother, walk in procession 
    with the two little girls toward 
    the Lublin showers and ovens, watching 
    the surprise and joy in her eyes as she recognized him 
    among the prisoners and shifted his sleeping baby sister's head 
    to the other shoulder so she could turn and look at him again 
    wanting to scale the fence and run into her arms 
    and scream his love, but quelling step and cry; 
watching Huna his younger brother's tear-ravaged 
    upturned face above the hated blue and white stripes 
    as the truck pulled out, ripping their 
    outstretched hands apart; 
watching Abraham his father being herded toward the 
    Auschwitz shooting place. 

A SILENT BOY, EXCEPT FOR THE TIME 
    when he was shoveling dirt, digging yet another unneeded ditch 
    near the high voltage barbed wire fence and saw the 
    children in their spotless Hitler Jugend uniforms 
    walk by, youngsters like him, and heard them laugh and 
    joke and talk and called out to them: 
    "Why am I different?" 

Ingrid Shafer 
20 November 1994