Our Annie

One of the most useful perks of volunteering at the HMTC was being part of a writing workhop
for survivors given in 2003-2004 by a published poet, Veronica Golos, and her able assistant
Bonnie Marcus. Our generous librarian and founding member, Marcia Posner, funded it. It was
here some of us shared our stories of survival and critiqued each other’s writing. One day Annie
Bleiberg, a participating survivor, brought a cake she had baked to share with us. As she cut the
cake the blue numbers on her arm were visible. On Aril 27, 2004, I was moved to write a poem
about her.

Annie

The oven is ready. You put the cake in.
There were other ovens. They were for you.
You wanted to live.
“If only they’d let us work,” you said.

You blended the flour, the eggs, the milk.
They blended the young and the old, from Poland, from Greece,
From Italy, from France.

You beat the eggs,
They beat you, little Jewess, your friends, your family.

The cake will rise.
Their ashes rose, not yours…
So many things to do, so many things to see, you said,
You jumped, jumped with hope, into the unknown.

Prepare the doily, the beautiful cake plate,
So it looks pretty, like your face
Washed in your tea stained cup,
So justly shared with your “goils,” (girls)
As we taste your cake this day.

Look pretty, so you won’t look ill,
So you will please dear Uncle Mengele
So you will live another day.

To bake another cake, so light and tasty
Drop by drop, by teaspoons, the vanilla, a beautiful scent.
By carloads, one by one, they went to the ovens,
The young, the teens, the children, the rabbis,
The doctors, the students, the beautiful people,
The awful stench

But you have no time to write about ovens, it “hoits” (hurts) you say,
You laugh and teach, and act, and love,
And bake and serve and bubble.
And share your soaring spirit.

You are our Annie,
Of the rising voice,
The crooked smile,
Of the shining eyes,
The indomitable spirit
The Annie of the tea-washed face,
The eyshet Chail, woman of valor with a vanilla scent,
Pink cheeks and lips, blue numbers on your arm
That deftly cuts and shares the bit of sweetness of your oven…