Names Forgotten

First we were herded

like cattle into the waiting cars

Poked and prodded and punched

then sealed up the door with bars

The wail of the train

voiced the screams locked inside

Nothing to drink but our sweat

Nothing to eat but our pride

Then we were shoveled

like hay, out of the open door

The boiling smoke of Auschwitz

welcomed ten thousand more

And there, we forgot

our homes and our love

We forgot our humanity

as into the ovens they shoved

There we were branded

and burned up like fuel

Broke our backs hauling stones

while they used us like tools

We forgot our voices could speak

Ashes snowed on the earth

We wished that we could forget

That fateful day of our birth

But no, we remembered...

remembered that day with shame

because we had forgotten...

forgotten that we had a name

Until the voice of our Maker

called out over the earth...

those names long forgotten...

that He gave on the day of our birth