My grandfather survived the camp
was there ever a question of the schoolteacher who became the blackmarket wheeler and dealer later to become a brigand of people’s skills be found out and then made a kapo?
maybe he wasn’t always a good man
maybe he wasn’t entirely evil either
he told me stories before bed
at the age of seven
of a violinist made to search for his severed hands in the snow as soldiers laughed at him drunk
warning him if he didn’t find his hands
they would shoot him
they wanted some lovely night music to accompany their nocturnal merriment
then the woman who kept crying she needed help
she was pregnant and starving
a bayonet shoved into her belly and twisted as the soldier grunted
“Here’s your help!”
he would think of his first wife and daughter
the reasons for doing what he had to do…maybe you never really know with anyone
when liberated friends gathered around to ask him where they were
he pointed to the smokestack
“that’s where my family is”
A military chaplain handed him a bible to seek solace
My grandfather stomped on it…
Pretended to be Christian Reformed to escape during the second failed Hungarian Revolution with my mother and grandmother
Did the sign of the cross at the dinner table when they hit America
Of course they were offended, no one was about rescuing Catholics, much less Jews
He’d give me a shot of Bull’s Blood before bed
I was five
I still remember the numbers tattooed on his wrist
numbers which mean something
I’ll keep to myself
Mike Zone is the author of A Farewell to Big Ideas, Void Beneath the Skin, Better than the Movie: 4 Screenplays and Fellow Passengers: Public Transit Poetry, Meditations and Musings. A contributing poet to Mad Swirl and contributing writer to the graphic novel series American Anti-hero by Alien Buddha Press. His poetry and stories have appeared in: Horror Sleaze Trash, The Daily Dope Fiend, Outlaw Poetry, The Rye Whiskey Review, Synchronized Chaos and Triadæ Magazine
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