“Jew in the Garden” skeletal men in striped uniforms visit the house, do odd jobs. i give them food, although i’ve been told not to. we stay in barracks at my husband’s work, watch chimney smoke blacken sky. i tell my husband, they’re burning the Jews. he says, no, they wouldn’t do that. i wonder why he says they when he wears the uniform, goosesteps with pen and ink instead of lifted knee. he laments bookwork for a business that kills its workers, yet pays for their coffins. couldn’t he smell the burnt flesh like I could? our children will survive, live long enough to tend their own gardens, feel shame for what we did to save them. he always loved to garden, to dirty his hands, to feel dark rich soil between his fingers, to sow the seeds our children will harvest. what seeds do we plant this day? he looks handsome in his uniform. what slight shift would it take for us to wear their stripes? yet he keeps us safe, loves their bright innocent faces, provides us a home and gardens when no one else comes to do the work i pay for with scraps i’m not allowed to give.
*Although this poem was drafted months ago, its relevance is especially apparent today.
*Inspired by the BBC article, Holocaust Memorial Day: Nazi in the Family, by Andrew Bomford.
Cat Russell 