“For Yom Ha’Shoah” by Sonia Weitz

Come, take this giant leap with me
into the other world . . . the other place
where language fails and imagery defies,
denies man’s consciousness . . . and dies
upon the altar of insanity.

Come, take this giant leap with me
into the other world . . . the other place
and trace the eclipse of humanity . . .
where children burned while mankind stood by
and the universe has yet to learn why
. . . has yet to learn why.

Connection Questions:
What does this poem mean to you? What questions does it raise for you?
Sonia Weitz has been called “a survivor with a poet’s eye.” How can poetry deepen one’s study of the Holocaust? What can we learn from poetry that more traditional historical accounts might not capture?

Re-read the poem and highlight the verbs Weitz uses. How do the verbs help to intensify her description of “the other world”?

Do you think that Weitz believes it is possible to understand the horrors of the Holocaust? What can we gain by studying the brutality of the Holocaust?

“For Yom Ha’Shoah” by Sonia Weitz

a) This poem means that the holocaust was the most terrible human tragedy.  It was an unnecessary suffering that any human being could inflict on a fellow being, no matter the provocation.  It was uncalled for.

b) It raises the question of human conscience.  Those who perpetrated or aided in the perpetration of the holocaust, just like the Rwandan genocide, can they be considered as human beings.

c) Poetry can deepen one's study of the Holocaust as it emotionally and graphically depicts the helplessness and sufferings that was the lot of the perceived enemies while the other looked unconcerned.  For example, see how she wrote: "... and trace the eclipse of humanity ... where children burned while mankind stood by ..."  This experience should move any soul to pity.  For me, the Holocaust was regrettable.

d) Unlike other traditional historical accounts like fiction and prose, poetry credibly shows that the events mentioned were real and not just imagined.  Poetry utilizes aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language, e.g. phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre, to evoke meanings in addition to the ostensible meaning.  Were this poem written in fiction or prose form, there would be questions to its narration accuracy.  The writer is not trying for the audience to identify with the specific characters, since they are universalized, but she is evoking your emotional reaction to the events that took place in a period of time and at a known place.

e1) Verbs used by Weitz included: come, take, fails, defies, denies, dies, trace, burned, stood, and has to learn.

e2) The verbs offered an invitation to witness or imagine what really happened in the other world.  This means that something horrible actually took place in "the other world."  For example, "Come, take this leap with me into ...  They narrated that words failed to restrain an outrageous genocide inflicted on a particular people.  Man's consciousness was denied.  Man's consciousness died out of insanity.  To "trace the eclipse of humanity ..." is an invitation for records to be documented of how humanity failed humanity just because of racial distinctions, bitterness, and unforgiving spirit.  There is also a futuristic outlook depicted by the verbs, especially "the universe has yet to learn why ..."

f) Weitz does not believe that it is possible to understand the horrors of the Holocaust.  It is only those who conscience had been stolen by the devil that can understand and explain the horrors.

g) Studying the brutality of the Holocaust shows that humanity had yet to civilize.  Humanity has yet to believe in Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ prayed to the Father, "Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."  Humanity is still bent on brutalizing those who are not like them, those who offer different opinions, those whose skin color are not similar to ours, those whose diction are different from us, etc.  History continues to repeat itself every time.  But, if you examine the facts closely, we are one, from the same parents, Adam and Eve, according to the Christian scriptures.  We are brothers and sisters!  When we kill one of us, we kill ourselves gradually, diminishing ourselves.

Explanation:

a) “For Yom Ha’Shoah” is a poem written by Sonia Weitz, a child-holocaust survivor. “For Yom Ha’Shoah” means "For the Day of Holocaust Remembrance."

Connection Questions:

Verbs used in the poems

"..take this giant leap with me..."

"...trace the eclipse of humanity . . .

where children burned while mankind stood by

and the universe has yet to learn why ..."

The verbs help to intensify the description of "the other world" by describing how children were burned and humanity was helpless to stop it.

I believe that Weitz believes it possible to try and understand the horrors of the Holocaust through description in the poem but not to fully understand or grasp the realities of the horrors that people faced during the Holocaust.

We can gain knowledge about what happened during the Holocaust so we cannot repeat the horrors that was done in the past.

yes

explanation: