by Joan Leotta
on Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah)
Our tour bus was rushing to
Reach the next “place to see”
In Budapest when I looked
Out the window to watch
Night begin to be reflected
In the Danube.
We turned a corner and
Driving close by the river,
I saw, an installation
of sculpted shoes along the banks.
Our guide did not seem
to notice. Her purview was
government buildings and
restored churches.
With wifi I reached back
In time, to the moment when
real people, Budapest’s Jews,
fell out of those shoes into the
Danube as Nazi machine guns
cut through their bodies.
Men. Women. Children.
My heart began to pound,
Evil lives on where
people chose to ignore it
past or present.
Only remembering can
begin to protect us from
evil perpetrating such again.
Joan Leotta is an author and Story Performer.