The Youngest Known Holocaust Survivor
"Auschwitz #6" by Barbara Milman
The Youngest Known Holocaust Survivor
Charles Fishman
For Dani and Haya
At 3, she was caged above the ovens
a twin with her twin sister: small wooden cage
no windows Only Mengele held the key
and opened that darkness to the flames
What he needed was their bones and their pain
whiter than the first flare of light after blindness
Who could she cling to but her sister
who shuddered and gulped death in the darkness
who stuttered her name which was Sora
so that to soothe herself Sora she could only
stammer back? And when she died
in her own arms Mengele broke her fingers
What can survive this death which comes
pouring out of her even now? Only the twin
of her anger the twin of her sorrow.