We Will Not Die

Holocaust poetry

I am a Jew and will be a Jew forever.

I am proud of my people.

Through all the hunger and pain,

Sadness and death,

They will not die

Why is this happening to us?

How are we different?

What have we done wrong?

Is being Jewish a crime?

The Nazis certainly think so.

I am proud of my people, for they will never submit.

We will not die.

All I see around me is blackness.

Starved corpses litter the streets.

There is no food to eat,

Nor water to drink.

Yet somehow, 

Our souls live on,

A brilliant white light in an otherwise black world.

We will never die.

Every time I see a child die, 

I die too.

Every time an old man cries for water,

I starve too.

Every time an emaciated woman falls,

I hurt too.

Through all this pain and suffering, we live on.

We will not die.

They are proud.

They are stubborn.

They are loving.

They are my people.

And they will never die.