Six million brothers
– by Yair Engel of blessed memory.
They look down on us from above,
Six million brothers.
They look down on us from above crying or laughing,
and we’re down here, not understanding at all
sitting on another planet, crying and embarrassed.
How can a person get up in the morning
A seemingly normal person
And cut down the living plucking away dreams
Erasing yesterday’s world
How can a simple man created from the earth
Bring desolation and ruin to the world,
That I will never understand.
And to think that everything was done so quickly
And systematically, it just drives me crazy.
And here’s another group of people
So good, so innocent dying inhumanely
Their world erased between four walls.
And now it’s late, people,
Very late only memories remain,
Only memories remain.
And even if we try and think a very long time,
We will never understand how they allowed themselves
To turn six million people into six million names.
That I will never understand.
And to think that everything was done so quickly
And systematically, it just drives me crazy.
And despite it all we need to continue
Living and be strong because
They look down on us from above, crying or laughing,
And his sons are so confident, his sons are so confident –
Six million brothers.
That I will never understand.
And to think that everything was done so quickly
And systematically, it just drives me crazy.
Yair Engel’s grandfather was an Holocaust survivor. An high school visit to Poland’s death camps touched and completely changed Yair’s life. There, on Poland’s bloody earth, he composed this poem. There he chose to serve as a IDF Navy Seal.
Yair passed away in 1996 in a tragic diving accident. After his death his mother found the above poem while cleaning his room.
Tomorrow, on May 5, 2016 – Holocaust Remembrance Day – this poem, written 20 years ago, will be performed in Poland during the “March of the Living”.
Yair’s father says that two circles will be closed for him, that of Yair and that of his father, an Holocaust survivor.