Holocaust poetry

Holocaust
by Barbara Sonek

We played, we laughed
we were loved.
We were ripped from the arms of our
parents and thrown into the fire.
We were nothing more than children.
We had a future. We were going to be lawyers, rabbis, wives, teachers, mothers. We had dreams, then we had no hope. We were taken away in the dead of night like cattle in cars, no air to breathe smothering, crying, starving, dying. Separated from the world to be no more. From the ashes, hear our plea. This atrocity to mankind can not happen again. Remember us, for we were the children whose dreams and lives were stolen away.

1. What is your initial reaction to this poem? My reaction to this poem is that i feel upset hearing about the victums of the holocaust and how they felt and how they were treated.
2. How does the author use 'we' in this poem? The author uses 'we' in this poem to talk about all the children who were tortured or killed in the concentration camps, and to talk about the potential all the children who were killed would have had.
3. What are the verbs used in the first sentence? the verbs in the first sentence are 'played' and 'laughed' which tell us about the children s life before the concentration camp
4. What are the verbs used in the second sentence? How do they contrast with those used in the first sentence? The verbs in the second sentence were 'ripped' and 'fire' which tells us about all the children who were killed in these camps apposed to played and laughed which tells us about the children happy life's before the concentration camp.
5. What effect does the listing of 'lawyers, rabbis, wives, teachers, mothers'? What is it meant to signify? The potential that all these children who were killed would have had in the future.
6. What simile is used in the poem and what effect does it have?
7. How has the poet represented herself in the last sentence? she has represented herself as one of the children who were tormented in these camps.
8. If you could communicate to this person, a victim of the Holocaust, what would you want to say? What do you feel that you must do in your life as a response to this poem? if i could communicate to this victum of the holcaust, i would want to ask them what they would have gone through in the camps and just how torturous it really was in these camps, i feel that i should do my best to make sure something like this would never happen again, that millions of people would not be killed just because of a backround/religion.