If This Is a Man - by Primo Levi
You who live safe
In your warm houses;
You who find on returning in the evening
Hot food and friendly faces:
Consider if this is a man
Who works in the mud
Who knows no peace
Who fights for a bit of bread
Who dies because of a yes and because of a no
Consider if this is a woman,
Without hair and without name
Without enough strength to remember
Vacant eyes and cold womb
Like a frog in the winter:
Reflect on the fact that this has happened:
These words I commend to you:
Inscribe them on your heart
When staying at home and going out,
Going to bed and rising up;
Repeat them to your children:
Or may your house fall down,
Your loved ones turn away from you.
Tomorrow night for "The International Holocaust Remembrance Day" I have organized an event in my little city with music and poetry. This is why I'm not very much around.
In your warm houses;
You who find on returning in the evening
Hot food and friendly faces:
Consider if this is a man
Who works in the mud
Who knows no peace
Who fights for a bit of bread
Who dies because of a yes and because of a no
Consider if this is a woman,
Without hair and without name
Without enough strength to remember
Vacant eyes and cold womb
Like a frog in the winter:
Reflect on the fact that this has happened:
These words I commend to you:
Inscribe them on your heart
When staying at home and going out,
Going to bed and rising up;
Repeat them to your children:
Or may your house fall down,
Your loved ones turn away from you.
Tomorrow night for "The International Holocaust Remembrance Day" I have organized an event in my little city with music and poetry. This is why I'm not very much around.