Opposing Perspective

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

An educational administrator in


     11 million were murdered by the Nazis.


the Carroll Independent School District


     6 million Jews were slaughtered.


in Southland, Texas,


     1.5 million children were killed.


advised her teachers recently


     The Nazis came to power legally.


that if they have a book


     The earliest victims were people with disabilities.


about the Holocaust in their classroom,


     People around the world knew of the camps.


they should also offer the student


     Dachau was the first concentration camp.


access to a book from an “opposite perspective.”


     Eventually there were thousands of camps.


Of course, if such a book were available,


     The Nazis believed they would rule 1000 years.


it would never find the light of day,
having been burned and scattered 
among the ashes of the murdered millions.

Mel Glenn, the author of twelve books for young adults, is working on a poetry book about the pandemic tentatively titled Pandemic, Poetry, and People. He has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years. You can find his most recent poems in the YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy, edited by M. Jerry Weiss. If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

2 Comments

Filed under European Jewry, history, Jewish, Jewish identity, Jewish writing, Judaism, poetry

2 responses to “Opposing Perspective

  1. So powerful. Chilling that this is even a question.

  2. Jessica Ursell

    The previous comment by Jewish Young Professional got it right. Absolutely chilling. And it’s tremendously important to speak out against this dilution and diminution of what happened to Jews during the holocaust. Jews who were singled out specifically and precisely and solely because they were Jews for total annihilation by the Nazis.

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