Dear kind man
Who helped me when I was 11 years old and
not speaking a word, not a single word, to anybody
because it would have been a German word
and then they would kill me, said the boy from my orphanage
Who was bald
because they shaved his head in the concentration camp
for being Jewish.
Dear kind man
Who spoke on the telephone in German
and made me cry so hard I fell over
and he picked me up and put me on a bus
with two bars of chocolate for his family
so they would like me.
But the chocolate was stolen
so I never went to his family
because they would think I’m a thief.
And that’s what I wanted you to know,
dear kind Man:
I was never a thief
And when I wake up in the middle of the night,
these 70 years later,
burning with shame
I still wish I could tell you what really happened,
dear kind man,
but I never saw you again.
