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At the Holocaust Museum with my Father

Stepping out into the narrow gallery,
bodies behind pressed us tightly into bodies -
we were walled in, as if inside fear-drenched,
dim, rattling cattle cars en route to the crematorium.
Claustrophobia descended, until
I saw soft cheeks, grey hair, gentle eyes,
above rounded shoulders dressed in dark blue -
forms of my childhood.

In my memory there are candlelit faces of Jews
who escaped Germany's death warrant.
Exit visas were golden passes to natural death.

In the museum, their faces comforted us.
We wended our way through your history,
skipping only the killing room,
whose very thought left you almost speechless.

After you were gone, my sister discovered -
Great-Grandfather died at Auschwitz.
Was that how he felt in the cattle cars
on the way to his immolation-
comforted by soft cheeks,
and round shoulders of Jews
with whom he had shared candlelight Shabbats?

I see him now across the room, a flame lit by Nazis,
a radiance illuminating soft cheeks
and gentle eyes of my family,
each child a blessing in the candlelight.

Katherine A Minden copyright 2007