Young Writers Society

What a very touching poem full of compassionate empathy! The repetition of I hope reinforces the feeling of pity and the need to extend a helping hand if only you could. If only we could how wee would have prevented all those people from experiencing man's inhumanity to man.

The list of the things that others took or take for granted, a wedding, a kiss, the right to have her hair as she wished it to be, the right to feel pride in her womanhood, such simple things, and yet so necessary and so hurtful if stripped savagely away. I don't blame you for feeling touched by that photo.

One wonders if such a scenario might ever repeat in the future since mankind's ability to become technologically advanced obviously isn't related to any moral improvement. The romans crucified during their heyday, yet 1900 years later we have mankind do this? What a shame!

I wish for her to be resurrected into a new world as promised by the scriptures where such things will not even be remembered.

Isaiah 65:17
"See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.

Okay, I want to start by saying that I am listening to a really emotional song just now so that coupled with this means I've literally just had to wipe tears away.

Repeating 'hope' in every line seems like a brave move to me, although I am not exactly well-acquainted with poetry. What makes me so happy about this is the utter difference in humans. The emotion is clear in every word and you bring to mind clear pictures of a happy girl. It made me remember that you are a human, thinking about a human you will never know, whose teenage years have been made a misery by yet more humans. It reminded me that while nobody can say that humans are 'good', neither can we say that they are 'bad'. We can say that the Nazis were bad, and the majority of the world's history curriculums do not stop doing so. But you showed through the emotion in this that humans can be just as good as bad and sometimes even more so.

If that made any sense, I hope you agreed with me.

Ironically, you have a face with no name. I have a name for which I can't remember the face. Her name was Assia Levinski. She was Polish (I think) and about fourteen. Instead of going to a concentration camp, she was taken from her ghetto and shot in a ditch. There is no hope for her. I am so glad there is hope for this girl. It's occurring to me that the girl from this poem would have been born in 1927, making her 87 if she is still alive. That is entirely possible. I wish you could find out. I wish she could understand how awesome humans can be, because God knows she's seen the opposite end of the spectrum.

I normally end these with 'Well done' but that seems too bright and happy and condescending for this.

Um, thank you, I guess

This poem almost made me cry both inside and out. The way you expressed your feelings towards a girl who you never met before shows what makes a human. It's heartbreaking to see all of the people who suffered in that terrible time but what was the worst was the pictures of all the children who died young. My same hopes that she survived and lived out her life in happiness and love. Thank you for this wonderful and caring poem for it has opened my eyes to the hearts of mankind.

I had the same feeling when someone told me the stories of victims of the holocaust. There was this one boy... Simon. It is truly heart breaking how thousands had their dreams and hopes shattered that way. This poem that you have written for her just keeps the memory alive. It is beautiful and i also hope she was not defined by her youth. Thank you for keeping her alive.

This poem does something I often try to do, add a story to a face. Imagine what somebody's life was like when you have no idea what it was like. The holocaust was evil and probably the most horrifying hate crime in earths history. It was despicable but it opened our eyes, it showed us how to prevent events like the holocaust from ever happening again. How are we ever going to learn how to prevent certain events if we don't know first hand how and why they happened in the first place. We can always learn from history, we can always learn from our past mistakes. Evil is always going to surround us, always be lurking in the corner, waiting for us to let our guard down. Little does it know, we are always going to be ready to fight it. We are stronger after we are hurt.

There's a quote I read a while back and this poem reminds me of it. It reads:

"I mean, they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and the second time, a bit later one, when somebody says your name for the last time." -Bansky

In addition to that quote, I believe another thing. You know how a story will always be forever? Those characters lives exist and consist between the front cover and the back cover. they never die, even if they did in the book, they were alive at some point because someone else was writing about them, and they will be forever. What I'm trying to say it that you've made is girl infinite. She will never be totally gone because you've written about her and she will always live between your last period and your first capitalization.

I think after reading your author's note a poem, I won't forget the impact people can have on each other, even hundreds of years later. It just makes me wonder if years after I'm gone, will someone two years younger than me not be able to get my picture or my story out of their head?

Keep expressing.

-Percybeth

Did she die? question...
Very emotional and thoughtful of you. I'm sorry you're scarred, and their was nothing we (USA) did to stop it.
But she's remembered now by this poem, you wrote for her. We all will know about this girl by this poem and wonder every day about her, by reading this.

Great job and hope you feel better.