Ann LeZotte - T4

He was three years
Older than I,
But that didn’t matter.
I would grow up.

It was better
To be friends
Before husband
And wife.

His hair was like
The wing of a blackbird.
His long arms reached up
To the higher branches of a tree.

He could ride a bicycle
Backwards in the rain,
Singing, “I will steal
A little horse and our
Fortunes make thereby…”

Walthar used Sign
With me
And soon my parents
And Clara and some
Of our neighbors
Understood too.

Father said
After the war
I could go to
A special school
In another town
For Deaf teenagers,
If it was still standing.

In truth,
It had to be rebuilt.
Germany’s Deaf
Community
Never completely
Recovered

From the public
And personal
Destruction.

Father said
He was sorry
He hadn’t thought
Of getting me
The best education
Before the war.

Our land, but our country was fighting
With the whole world, it seemed.
My experience had taught me

That Germany’s cause was wrong. I was lucky
To have parents who were kind and taught
Us not to hate anybody. Could I make a
Difference, like Father Michael?

I thought of the future world—if Jews,
Gypsies, and the Disabled would have an
Equal part in it? Meanwhile, the sweet
Brook flowed and I slept on the hammock.

I was almost happy when summer’s bees
And dandelions were replaced with a hard
Freeze and dark winter days. It had
Seemed wrong to feel so safe and alive.

The Christkind
Brought us a tree
And presents.

Walthar gave me
A boy and girl
He carved
Out of wood.

The next day
We had a roast
Goose lunch.

Outside
Snow fell
On my house

And other parts
Of Europe,
Lightly

Covering
The mass graves
Of the Nazis’ victims,
And our fallen soldiers,

Young German
Boys who had
Given their lives
To an unjust cause.

As she and everybody else sang—
I had started to speak, but mostly
Croaked like a frog—
A song by our countrymen,
Father Josef Mohr and Franz Gruber.

Silent night, Holy night
All is calm, all is bright
’Round yon virgin Mother and Child
Holy infant so tender and mild.
Sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace.

It was a prayer that year, not just a carol.
Our Savior’s birth was tinged with sorrow.

Stephanie Holderlin
Again.
But she was
In my heart.

Father Josef
Remained
A family friend.
Father Michael
Was killed
By an Allied bomb.

Later we learned
That six million
Jews
Had been
Murdered.

But I always
Thought
Of those seven
In the cabin.

In May of 1945,
Germany
Surrendered.

The United States,
Russia, and England
Were victorious.

Japan and Italy
Fell with us.
Our crimes

Would live in
Infamy.
Forty-eight million

People had died
Fighting
Across the globe.

Grandmother said,
“All the suffering,
All the casualties.

This is the worst
War the world
Will ever know.”

I prayed to God, our
Lantern in the dark,
That it would be so.

Father Josef married me and Walthar
In a country church ceremony. I wore
A long white gown and satin slippers.
I braided my hair and pinned it around
My head, like a crown. I proudly wore

A necklace of gold coins Walthar had
Given me when he proposed. It was
A Romani tradition. My groom had no
Family left after the war, so he decided
To join my world. Still, on our wedding

Night, we shared some salted bread before
Going to bed, another Gypsy custom. We
Had a son and daughter: one with dark,
Faraway eyes, the other with hair like spun
Gold. I was a farmer’s wife. We visited

Father and Mother until they died, four months
Apart, in the same bed. Clara married too,
And became an actress in Berlin. Whatever
Season, whatever weather, we were glad we

Had survived the worst, but we also felt guilty.
That feeling—that we had escaped when others equally
Important had died—would never subside.

A plaque
commemorating
The victims
of Action T4
Was set in
the pavement
Where the offices
once stood.
The original
building
Had been destroyed
in the war.
Educating
people is
The best tool
we have
Against
forgetting.
We must
make sure
Nothing
like T4
Ever
happens
Again.
And so
My story
told in
Poetry
ends.