THEIR TICKETS WERE PAID IN FULL

When the original invitations
went out to six million European
Jews requesting the honor of their
presence at Dachau, Treblinka, and
Aushwitz for cold showers, cremation,
and communal interment, no one much
wanted to to go.

Now place-settings are prized at annual
commemorations, and umbrage duly taken.
"Since when were Jews the only ones killed,"
cries one outraged humanist. "Why
do Jews get top billing?" another
scorekeeper wants to know.  A third
rebels against this year's theme: "Millions
were killed besides children, what's up!"

How often must they have shivered awake on
their slat wood bunks praying all this would
dissolve into merely nightmarish dreams!
How devoutly must they have wished for the
gassings to be more egalitarian, inclusive, and fair!

Somehow I preferred the mother
rushing by one morning, who stared
at the exhibit, with its scattered little
shoes, just wanting to know if she had,
at long last, located the school's
"Lost and Found."


Holocaust Remembrance Exhibit
Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School
April, 1992




All written material © Bill Schechter, 2016
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