Today, Father’s Day, I felt compelled to write something about all the Fathers who lived and were murdered during the Holocaust, but there were too many to mention, So I decided to honor them all via a poem. So many were murdered, only a few survived, but they all had something in common, none of them knew what their fate, and more disturbingly, the fate of their family would be, That alone is a horror which I could not fathom. I chose the image of Hermann van Pels, one of the Fathers in Frank’s family secret annex, as a symbol for all the Fathers.
This is the poem; I hope I did them justice.
Silent Pillars
In the shadow of history’s darkest hour,
Where silence holds the heaviest power,
Fathers stood with hearts of steel,
In a world that could not feel.
Eyes that watched the endless night,
Glimpses of a stolen light,
Each breath is a fight against despair,
Their courage whispered through the air.
Hands that held both hope and fear,
In a landscape cold and drear,
They sheltered dreams in hidden places,
Masking pain with stoic faces.
Through the barbed wire and the ash,
Their spirits endured each cruel lash,
For in their hearts, a flame persisted,
A father’s love, unyielding, resisted.
They carved out strength from suffering,
Found solace in their children’s spring,
Though the world around was torn apart,
They nurtured life in the dark.
Silent pillars, unsung grace,
Their legacy in every face,
Of children who survived the storm,
To carry forth their fathers’ form.
In memories that time has sealed,
Wounds that history revealed,
Fathers of the Holocaust stand,
Eternal, in a fractured land.
Their whispers guide us through the years,
A testament through endless tears,
To cherish freedom, honor pain,
And never let such shadows reign.
https://www.annefrank.org/en/anne-frank/main-characters/hermann-van-pels/
History of Sorts 