Several freshmen at TechBoston Academy made well-received presentations during the Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony May 9..



This is a poem by Karen Gershon read by Lachemy.

Karen is the pseudonym for Karen Loewenthal Tripp, who was born in 1923 in Bielefeld, Germany. At the age of sixteen, her family sent her to England. Her parents died in the Holocaust. After the war, she remained in England, where she married and had 4 children. Her career as a poet and prose writer evolved from her experiences as a refugee who had fled the Nazis. An award-winning author, she is the editor of "We Came as Children: A Collective Autobiography," from which this poem is taken. Gershon died in 1993.

"Cast out"

Sometimes I think it would have been

Easier for me to die

Together with my parents

To have been surrounded by

Them to survive alone

Sometimes It does not seem that they

Spared me the hardest Jewish fate

Since by spending me away

They burdened me and cast me out

And none suggested I should stay

When the Jews were branded there

Was one number meant for me?

That another had bear

My perennial agony

Is the brunt of my despair

Sometimes I feel I am a ghost

Adrift without identity

What as a child I valued most

For ever has escaped from me

I have been cast out and am lost



An excerpt from "The Diary of Anne Frank" was read by Mia, a freshman.

"This is an adaptation from the diary kept by Anne Frank as she and her family hid from the Nazis in Amsterdam during World War II. In 1942 eight Jews-The Franks, the van Daans and Dr. Dussel, a dentist –sough asylum in the attic of a warehouse belong to Mr. Franks' firm. These hunted people lived together for two years, depending on the four former employees of Mr. Frank for food and necessities.

Anne vegan her diary at the age of 13, and has given the world a tender, beautiful document about a girl growing up and the human spirit discovered in 1944 and it’s inhabitants were sent to concentration camps. In the next few months, they all died except for Otto Frank.

"Oh, I don’t mean you have to be orthodox…or believe in heaven and hell and purgatory and things…I just mean some religion…it doesn’t matter what. Just believe in something! When I think of all that’s out there…the tress…and dearness of you, peter…and the goodness of the people we know…Mr. Kraler, Miep, Dirk, The vegetable man, all risking their lives for us everyday…when I think of these good thing, I’m not afraid any more…I find myself, and god, and I…

I know it’s terrible, trying to have any faith…. When people are doing such horrible…but you know what I sometimes think? I think the world may be going through a phase, the way I was with mother, it’ll pass, maybe not for hundreds of years, but someday…. I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are really good at heart."

Joseph, a freshman, read this poem by Yala Korwin. It's about a young girl in hiding because for those who hid, the threat of betrayal was a mintage-to-mintage reality.

Yala Korwin was born and educated in Lwow, Poland. Her family lived in the ghetto until her father fled. The family was denounced, and her father, mother, and older sister were killed.

"Singing in the Sun"

For the Italians, friends of the Jews, stationed in 1942 in Lwow.

Be still as a mouse, warned my gentle friends.

So I sat there, half-holding my breath, in a dark corner of the hiding place, an empty garage. Fill I heard her sing.

If only I could catch but a glimpse

of her who among such sorrows and pains

can remain so joyful, so spry

I glued my face to a cleft in the door

Hanging out her freshly washed linen

on a thick rope stretched across

two trees in her garden,

she was humming a merry, lively tune.

The sun gilded the crown of her hair,

air tinted the skin of her cheeks,

sky brightened the glow in her eyes,

she was free to sing and rejoice.

Piercing envy filled me to the brim

as I moved my face a bit closer,

much too close. Sudden screech of old planks.

Too late to recede. She approached. I froze

She stood there watchful, anxious, keen.

Let me live, my frightened eyes implored,

don’t denounce me. I’m young as you are.

Let me sing a carefree song once more.

Did she notice my dispirited gaze?

Did she guess my silent, ardent prayer?

She just stood there, then she turned away

and slowly went back to her chore.



Staff members Sherrelle, Steven and Daniel helped to compile this report.