They had not seen each other in fifty years.
In between, a world war and a concentration camp.
Then my pop,
Erwin of the Homburg hat clan,
Went for the first time to the land of Israel,
From the safety of the United States.
A side trip, an unscheduled tour visit-stop,
A private memory to re-collect,
To a special hospital,
Where the survivors who did not really survive,
Live in tender care until there are no more.
A childhood friend to see, a dust to be disturbed.
In comes a man, now an American, a family man,
But with a European goatee, un-accented English,
Yet a boy, a young man from the Hamburg clan,
When last seen in the 1920's.
A voice calls out happy,
A miracle I call it.
Meine kleine Ervin!
My little Erwin!
What can I say other than
I weep as I write.
Oct 26, 2013
Oct 26, 2013 at 8:31 AM UTC
They had not seen each other in fifty years.
In between, a world war and a concentration camp.
Then my pop,
Erwin of the Homburg hat clan,
Went for the first time to the land of Israel,
From the safety of the United States.
A side trip, an unscheduled tour visit-stop,
A private memory to re-collect,
To a special hospital,
Where the survivors who did not really survive,
Live in tender care until there are no more.
A childhood friend to see, a dust to be disturbed.
In comes a man, now an American, a family man,
But with a European goatee, un-accented English,
Yet a boy, a young man from the Hamburg clan,
When last seen in the 1920's.
A voice calls out happy,
A miracle I call it.
Meine kleine Ervin!
My little Erwin!
What can I say other than
I weep as I write.
For my Germanic, formal father, my pop, for if ever there was a father for whom the appellation pop was so wrong, it was him. Perhaps that why he loved so.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3874010,00.html
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