https://padlet.com/mcd04684/hd01bowwfeu1 Connor McDermott en-us 2018-04-27 15:28:22 UTC 2018-05-01 14:58:53 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/icons/Bigthunderstorm.png mcd04684 https://padlet.com/mcd04684/hd01bowwfeu1/wish/256056415 Very often we didn't believe them.
It'll all blow over.

They would tell stories,
Tears running down his cheeks.
We're going to be taken away.
They are not gonna take my son.

But the jews were a hunted animal.
Those viscous dogs
Could smell if a jew came in.

Hush!

They came,
We didn't run away.
They broke down the front doors,
We didn't hide.
They took away my identity...
Anything that meant anything to me,

Gone.

Herding the people,
They put us in the dungeons;
Total darkness.
We couldn't get out of it.
The most monstrous thing devised,
The gas chambers,
They could not?

Gone.

I'm at my wit's end:
I can not rationally explain,
Why did god spare me?]]> 2018-04-27 15:32:05 UTC https://padlet.com/mcd04684/hd01bowwfeu1/wish/256056415 mcd04684 https://padlet.com/mcd04684/hd01bowwfeu1/wish/256722451 My found poem seemingly follows the story of a Jewish European as they are taken away, and how many of them didn't think they would fall under the control of the german Nazis and /or sympathizers. After reading Maus and watching The Last Days, I was clearly able to form a mental image of how bizarre the idea of being taken away was to many, especially those residing in Hungary. Listening to the survivors and the punishments they had to go through, I doubt if I myself would've had the willpower to keep going as these ones did.

I start out with 'not believing them, and it'll all blow over', signifying that the residents of far away areas, such as hungary, just viewed the Nazis, far away, as nothing more as a simple imbalance of power so fragile a gust of wind could knock them down. Then the story turns more somber, covering the family aspect of the holocaust's impact, in which people were fanatically worrying about their loved ones, such as a son. I thought the pairing of 'the Jews were a hunted animal' and 'those vicious dogs' was a great opportunity to subtly explain the basis for what was going on. The jews were not being treated as humans simply practices a religion, but a completely different, and almost species, with the Germans as the horrific perpetrators. My next stanza captures the moment when the Germans finally arrived and the people just froze. In situations like this it is almost possible to pinpoint the exact second where people lost all hope, and stripped of their humanity. What the Nazis did was horrible, and so far I hadn't exactly stressed that, so I wanted to follow the life of a survivor a bit more, and to expose the 'monstrous' things that happened in the camps. I wanted to establish the feeling of helplessness. The end I wanted to leave up for interpretation. By phrasing it this way,  you could either see the 'Gone.' as saying 'I'm gone and god spared me from dying' or gone in the sense the narrator is gone from the living world and God spared them from spending more time with the Nazis, and that death was a relief. Originally I was planning on just having the first 'happier' ending, but then I played around to allow the reader to make their own decision in the poem.]]> 2018-04-30 23:21:28 UTC https://padlet.com/mcd04684/hd01bowwfeu1/wish/256722451