Archive
05/20/12
Isaac Rosenkrantz
From the very beginning of the end — My being relegated to the cramped rat mazes of Warsaw's ghetto, Then to the concentration camp at Dachau, And, eventually, again by cattle car, to the catacombs of Auschwitz, Over tracks spiked to ties laid by my dead Jewish brethren —
The very end beginning when my pariah family was sent into exile, Forced to face the specters of humiliation, shame, horrific terror, Face disowning our sacred Biblical names, surrendering our identities To the demoralizing depravities of dehumanization, Face the heinous ukases of our Nazi perpetrators' merciless rage,
I realized that something immitigably strange was taking place And that for as short as I'd live or as long as I'd be dead, I'd never, in this, my lifetime, or in that, my next existence, Ever begin logically, rationally to define, analyze, explain Just why these catastrophic social disruptions came to pass
And, in passing, after Hitler's elapsing twelve-year disaster collapsed, Left me alive, breathing the ash and the dust of the deceased . . . Just why I'd been "passed over" and not they, Those who'd distinguished themselves, in their various countries, As politicians, musicians, professors, doctors, scientists, writers, bankers,
I just a less-than-prosperous, if devoted, kosher butcher, A fellow who apprenticed to my parents, in their delicatessen, Which had been handed down during the previous hundred years — An honorable means to a modest living somewhat above subsistence, Serving to help my Polish community follow our dietary laws . . .
Just why I ended up beginning all over again, after the scourge, Dislocated, in a place named East Flatbush, Brooklyn, U.S.A., Living in the Rosenkranz's cramped basement, on Remsen Avenue, Becoming the trusted manager of their corner grocery store, Overseeing, for the next four decades, their American Dream success.
05/20/12
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