Terezin and my In-Laws
1.
My father-in-law Michael calls it
Theresienstadt.
It was his last camp.
A lad, set free in š45, he had
nothing and no-one to return to in Romania.
His wanderings led him at last to Australia.
Here he made a life, married.
Four children, four grandchildren.
Israel he visits, but not Europe.
2.
His merchant banker son, Andrew,
phones him: Dad, guess what?
Our Prague office, which is in a castle,
has put us in a limo, wešre on our way
to Theresienstadt.
3.
What they said to each other next,
I havenšt heard, but I'm brooding on images,
one easy to see: the limo
with Andrew the banker, riding high;
the other, from sixty years back,
harder to visualise:
a starved lad whošs seen
things hešll never mention,
with nothing but a number
tattooed on his arm, and
a ruined continent to put behind him.
Max Richards
Melbourne
Wednesday 21 September 2005
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