CIGARETTE
CIGARETTE SELLERS OF 3 CROSSES SQUARE
Warsaw ghetto 1940 Orphaned Jewish
children sleep on streets & in cemeteries
hiding their identities
Easier for Ignac Bloomberg sandy hair
blue eyes Not so for darklings hearded
onto trains
The boys had names like: Conky Hoppy
Toothy Frenchy SS Officer fell for Frenchy
First an advantage Later disappeared into Gestapo
headquarters
What do you think they did with Frenchy?
You cannot conjure anything so depraved
Or maybe you can They kept him in a cell
where Dr. Mengele visited daily for tissue samples
Ignac survived through what his son later called:
balancing extreme fear with extreme hubris In 1947
Canada took 1000 children Ig was one of 3 cigarette
sellers from Warsaw who made it out
Can you hear the ghostly trains crisscrossing Europe?
Night skies blood-red Carrion cars forge ahead
One loaded with the near-exterminated
Your Aunties & cousins my father said We tried to
get them out but it was too late By then Canada
had decided none was too many
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Winter 2014 for Frenchy
songanddancegirl 