Camoflauge

Sometimes, people will make you feel afraid of looking stupid or like you are in the wrong when you stand up for what you know is right. Like you are attacking them.

I will never forget hearing first-hand accounts from Holocaust survivors. The couple, brother and sister Kissel, were members of my congregation as a child. Some of the few memories that I never lost because they were acquired when I was about ten, and I never let them leave my mind. I replayed the important message they imparted to us. The tattoos on their forearms were similar but not identical, especially as time had wrinkled them and floated the ink of the numbers in their fragile skin. That image has never left my mind’s eye.

As People of Jewish descent, born in Germany, who were part of the religion that at that today is called Jehovah’s Witnesses, they had little hope of avoiding capture. They talked of being forcibly identified with both a yellow star and a purple triangle so everyone could see why they were being persecuted and participate.

They spoke of how things hadn’t changed all in one day. Hitler didn’t walk up to the podium one day and take everyone away all at once. He made more and more friends, and the more friends he made, the more powerful he became, the more names he added to the list of people who would be taken away, and given arm bands for identification. The more powerful he became, the more he could force those “friends” and followers along with his plans, whether they all really agreed with everything he thought or said or not. You see, the bigger the group there is doing something, the more right it looks.

It was part of the overall plan to hide their evil amongst normal folks; once he got regular people to go along to cheer him on, no one would want to see the atrocities for what they were. They literally wouldn’t be able to cope with the guilt of participating. Or so the Nazi high command thought.

Never again is what we write on our Instagrams; we light candles each year while actual nazis and nazi fanboys literally march in streets around the world, killing our brothers and sisters. It is happening again. The mere concept of never again does not stop it from happening. The belief that it can’t happen in whatever marginally safe, homogenized neighborhood you live in is dangerously naive. That is the whole point of gentrification. To make you feel separated and safer. To corral all the people they want to be kept out of sight in specific areas.

That is what the ghettos were for! We are watching them be built right before our eyes; we are pushing people into them as we sit around writing poetry! This is how it happened!

Just look at what has and is happening in Isreal. What will you say if Chinatown gets attacked in your city? What will you do when the Jewish quarter you didn’t even know existed is on fire? What about the “black part of town?” I came from The St. Louis Metro area, the whole world saw what happened in Ferguson, or has a few years already washed those memories away?

What atrocities will international courts reveal to us when the dust of Gaza clears? My tax dollars are painting the rubble of Ghaza with ash and blood.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedCongratulations CamouflageYou’re the words They hide amongstEvil’s hunted While strolling lonelySo it lurks in crowdsRight out in the openIt loves to roam freeSpreading an invisibleAura of fearWhile you stand aroundSpouting sermons on FreedomThey slip on the cuffsAnd lock up thePoorDriving neighborsJust past your Half-open doorPleading in the Flickering candle-light You squint in to readWaving them offTheir cries A disturbanceYour literary banquet setThe only thing of Importance

K.B. Silver