Gabriela Marquis of Lewis and Clark takes first place for poem in Observance of Holocaust writing and art contests
The Spokane Community Observance of the Holocaust has announced the top three selections in the high school division of the 13th annual Eva Lassman Memorial Writing and Art Contests. The contest theme is “Speaking Up for ‘the Other’.”
The contest asked participants to learn about the Holocaust and read about or listen to some of the many stories of survivors who were labeled “the other” by the Nazis, and consider these questions:
What are the lessons you learned from their stories that had a major impact on you? Why is it important to speak up for those who are considered “the other”?
Who are “the other” today? Based on the lessons you learned, what are you motivated to do to speak up for them?
If you go
The contest winners will be recognized at the Spokane Community Observance of the Holocaust at 7 p.m. Sunday at Temple Beth Shalom, 1322 E. 30th Ave., on Spokane’s South Hill. The winner of the Creative Writing Contest will read her essay at the Observance. Everyone is invited to attend.
First place, writing, high school division
The Others
By Gabriela Marquis
11th grade
Lewis and Clark High School
I Am the Other
Germany, 1943
I stand
On the wrong side of a long barbed wire fence
Looking out across a field that is
Always out of reach.
Thinking about freedom, which is
So easily shattered by a fence.
They stand on one side of the fence, and I, the other.
My hair does not shine Aryan gold.
My eyes don’t glimmer like opals.
Once I braided my tangled brown hair,
I covered my eyelids in a soft brown stardust,
And I felt just as beautiful as the others.
I recite the Kaddish and Mi Sheberach
One after another, the Hebrew
Letters lifting from my tongue
And sailing towards the sky.
Even further than the smoking tower,
They run to places
I cannot go.
I pray for the sick; my brother, my abba, my eema, me
I pray for the dead; my brother my abba, my eema, me
Sick or dead,
Sometimes I cannot remember the difference
Between one and the other.
They pick me up from the floor,
Men with guns and badges.
Their fingers scrape my skin
And for a moment I pretend
It is just a mask.
And if they pull hard enough,
It will fall away
And underneath I’ll truly be German, not the Other.
I wish to be born with the blood of my country,
Hair and eyes like women in my country.
I close my eyes and
For a second,
Underneath my Jewish skin,
I am not the other.
As they throw me in a new room,
They call out the number
That invades my skin,
As if it is my name.
They do not let me forget:
I am a Jew, in my blood,
A Jew, in my hair,
A Jew, in my skin.
I am not German.
I am the other.
I stand
On the wrong side of a wall
Nothing but darkness and
A memory, always out of reach.
I sit
In the wrong side of a small room
Thinking about freedom and
Why
They have taken mine away.
They stand on one side of the fence,
A fence built of fear and anger,
Without hesitation
They condemn me
For living as the
Other.
I Am the Other
The United States, 2018
I remember standing
On the wrong side of a slatted steel fence
Looking out across a desert
The entrance to a life
That was always out of reach.
I remember
The freedom of stepping
Across the fence into
The land of the free
Recalling how liberty had stood
On one side of this fence, and I, the other.
My American Dream was to live
And forget the days
My dad came home
His mind full of the threats,
Beaten and grasping at survival,
My parents
Carried their daughter
To the illusion of safety,
Across a desert
To a land where she was the Other.
We wanted to live
To learn, to love, to work,
To grow old without fear.
In a one room apartment
We started over.
My mom gave birth to a boy
In America
As he cried for food one morning,
The fear came to our door.
And now,
My brother,
My mamá,
My papá,
Could be anywhere.
I am alone.
I try not to think what has happened
To people like us, the Others.
I whisper to myself in Spanish,
Dios te salve, Maria
I’m unable to understand
What they yell at me.
Ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte.
I imagine the letters lifting from my tongue
and sailing towards the sky.
They run to the places I cannot go.
My body
And frozen cement
I cannot tell the difference
Between one and the other.
They pick me up from the floor,
Men with guns and badges.
Their fingers scrape my skin
And for a moment I pretend
It’s just a mask
And if they pull hard enough,
The mask will tear off,
And underneath I am truly American,
Not the Other.
I wish to be born in this country, with the blood of this country,
A tongue that speaks the words of this country.
But my tongue knows another.
As they throw me in a court room,
Calling my case number as if it is my name,
They don’t let me forget:
My blood, my hair, and my skin don’t belong here
Not even for safety.
They do not seem to hear:
My home is in this country.
My infant brother belongs to this country.
Underneath my skin
And the place of my birth,
I am not the Other.
I sit on the wrong side of a court room
Nothing but fear
And a memory,
Always out of reach.
I stand on the wrong side of a wall
A wall built of fear and anger
Thinking about freedom.
Without hesitation,
They condemn me
For living as the
Other.
From Silence to Speech
United States, 2019
I listen to voices that were taken,
Then rediscovered.
Memories that rob me of my breath.
The mother and her infant,
The sister and the brother,
The child left alone.
Who in our world has been robbed of their voice?
Who in my country cannot speak?
Mothers and infants,
Sisters and brothers,
The children pushed behind bars
Just for being here,
Being different.
Families were torn,
Unable to speak
With their captors,
Unsure when they would ever
Truly be free,
And safe.
Sure that they are
Guilty without a trial.
We listen to the past,
In podcasts, in books, in museums
We listen and listen and listen.
But do we listen to the present?
Now, so often there is silence
And in the past
When there was silence,
The world overlooked it.
But in the silence lived suffering
Souls who could not speak.
Their stories,
Silenced by bars.
If we are to learn from the past,
We must learn how to listen
To the silence
To the other.
Now.
We must listen
Before there are words spoken.
Far too often
Words are spoken too late.
Hurry
And act
Before we again can only remember.
Speak
So that those who are unwilling to hear the silence
Must listen too.
1,100 children
Still find themselves
Trapped in cold cement rooms.
In our country. Now.
Without lawyers or English or family.
In our country,
They will never forget
The tears and the shame.
Justice dwells behind bars, in the still,
Small, silent places.
Let her free.