Holocaust Documentation & Education Center sponsored the award

Alex Han, a 10-year-old fourth-grader at Lakeside Elementary School in Pembroke Pines, FL, has been awarded a $250 bond for his poem “Holocaust: The Meaning of Never Again.” Han’s simple approach toward the poem — repetition of the phrase “Never again will…” — yields value and complexity when considered alongside his list’s matter-of-fact specificity (“Never again will people think that Jews / Are brainwashing Chrisitians.”).

At turns hopelessly optimistic (“Never again will the swastika / Be held up high, / And worshipped”), the child’s poem is an effecting exhale of relief that the Nazis are no longer in power (“Never again will there be Gestapo and Nazis”) and a dramatic, if credulous call for rational ethics and actions (“Let there be…Help instead of murdering). The poem underscores the value of teaching the Holocaust to the newest generations. Han’s award came courtesty of Hollywood-based Holocaust Documentation and Education Center. It is posted below inits entirety; you can find an interview with Han at the Sun Sentinel.

Holocaust: The Meaning of Never Again

Never again will camps be made
Where Nazis tortured Jews.
Never again will Jews be blamed
Because of a man’s hatred.
Never again will victims be harmed by
Perpetrators.
Never again will there be
Anti-Semites who follow Hitler.
Never again will people think that Jews
Are brainwashing Christians.
Never again will innocent lives
Perish without a hateful death.
Never again will people be
Judged based on their race
And their religion.
Never again will the swastika
Be held up high,
And worshipped.
Never again will there be Gestapo and Nazis –
The cold-blooded killers.
Never again will we walk with racism,
The animal that invaded Hitler’s mind.
Never will we forget the Resistance –
Heroes that saved millions of Jews.
Let there be heroes instead of bystanders
Truth instead of lies
Help instead of murdering
Love instead of hate.

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