‘YESTERDAY’ by Martin Small

My old little house
With a chimney on the roof
Facing Heaven
And sun
With her golden rays
Warms all of us
The night the moon
The countless stars
Twinkling through darkness

The little room I slept in
With books in every corner
A sign of life and play
The lamp-they table the walls
Like witnesses of one time
My Mama’s and Papa’s room
So clean worn-pictures
And Love
Now shiver
By opening the door
Stoned you remain
Just asking why?

The table is set
Candles and chalah
For the Shabbat
Mama lighting the Shabbat candles
Covering her face in prayer
For health and peace
For her family
Papa dresses as a king
Holding mama under his arm
Strolling so proudly to Shul

A world once existed
Life in our schtetl
Streets full of children
Playing – singing - dancing
Now silence – all gone

My little dog
So hungry and cold
Lays down in the night by the house
Confused-crying in silence
Where have my friends gone?

My Mama Papa and two little sisters
They took them away
Naked walking through the streets
With screams of torture and pain
To their graves

They walked themselves
To a “Levaya”
From which no one came back
With screams of Schma Israel
While being covered with earth

I hear a voice
Crying - begging
Pleading from the cold earth
My son…
Why is there dirt
On your sweet sister’s faces?
Why do we shiver
Beneath this living tomb?

My son…
Your father holds me closely
To help keep me warm
What is to become of us?

I stop and listen
But the voice is silent
Was it really my Mother speaking?
Or just –
The ghost of memories gone by?

Voices of my past
Stabbing to my soul
All that is left
A bottomless hole

Am I truly alive?
Or was I too buried
Beneath the icy earth?
Bloodshed and tears
Which once filled the air
Of tortuous memory
Impossible to bear




My Mama
My Papa
My two little sisters
Gone forever
“Oh Gotenue”

They took me away
They also took away my name
I became a number
In a place where
Faceless people pass me by
Expressionless
Remnants with branded numbers
On their bodies

Screaming - and fleeing
Their past
Running to an unknown future
An unspeakable vision
Don’t you think?
Schma Isroel

I feel their pain
I hear their cries
From pits full of naked
Men women and children
Being shot and buried alive
And their voices call on us
Remember us
Remember us

There are no more tears left
I am lost - I can see
But I promise
To remember them

My life is just memories
Full of pain
Haunting me – Nightmares
Of a time - long ago
Called yesterday
Yiskadal Veyiskadash