Dear Oscar and Rachel by Michael Rosen

Jan 08, 2021, 09:35 PM

'On the Move. Poems about Migration' by Michael Rosen, page 73 (Walker Books)

Oscar and Rachel,
you escaped from where
they pinned a yellow star
on you.
You escaped from where 
they took all you had.
You escaped from where 
they made you put a sign 
on your market stall, 
saying “Jewish business”.

Oscar and Rachel, 
you heard it was safe
in the great resort of Nice 
on the other side of France, 
because the Italians in Nice
were refusing to send Jews like you 
away on trains to the East,
to a place no one was coming back from.
So you both ran
all the way there.
   
Oscar and Rachel, 
in Nice,
the Italians put you in a grand old hotel.
You were waiting in that hotel, 
thinking you were safe.
Thinking you were about to get on board 
and sail away, across the sea to North Africa, 
and you would be safe till the war was over.

Until you saw the Italians leave. 
Until you saw one of the worst, 
most violent Nazis of all
march into Nice.
Until his police
found a few thousand of you 
waiting in the hotel,
and wrote your names down 
and put you on a train to Paris, 
and then on a train to the East
where no one was coming back from.

Oscar and Rachel, 
you were so close, 
so near
to the waves that would take you away, 
so near
to where the war couldn’t reach you.

I sometimes think how 
on holidays in France 
when I was a boy,
I might have met you, 
Oscar and Rachel.

And I would have listened to you telling stories 
about your great escape
across the sea.