Requiem Quotes

“You are making music
in the shadow of the gallows.”
― Paul B. Janeczko, Requiem: Poems of the Terezin Ghetto

“A white linen tablecloth
edged with pink roses --
Mama's favorite pattern --
flowed like a bride's train
from sidewalk to curb to gutter.
Papa stared at black boot marks
crossing it like sins.”
― Paul B. Janeczko, Requiem: Poems of the Terezin Ghetto

“Blue sky beyond barbed wire I wish I were sky.”
― Paul B. Janeczko, Requiem: Poems of the Terezin Ghetto

“I will stay with her until it is time to close her eyelids wrap the wretched sheet around her bones.”
― Paul B. Janeczko, Requiem: Poems of the Terezin Ghetto

“Dead or not, he must taste my Sarah's ashes.”
― Paul B. Janeczko, Requiem: Poems of the Terezin Ghetto

“Beasts of burden, we shouldered bundles of what pieces of the past we were allowed to keep as we joined the river of fear, a current of shuffling feet, sobs, and whimpers that crept past dark mouths of archways and windows of Terezin.”
― Paul B. Janeczko, Requiem: Poems of the Terezin Ghetto

“I ordered my Jews closer.”
― Paul B. Janeczko, Requiem: Poems of the Terezin Ghetto