Pro memory
You who live safe In your warm houses, You who find
returning in the evening, Hot food and friendly faces: Consider if this is a
man
What works in the mud Who knows no peace Who fights for
half bread Who dies because of a yes or a no.
Consider if this is a woman, Without hair and
unnamed
no more strength to remember, Her eyes empty and her womb cold. Like a frog in winter
forget that this was:
Remember these words: Carve into your heart
When at home by,
bed, rising;
Repeat them to your children. Or have you undone
Home,
illness impede you, May your children
twist their faces from you.
If This Is a Man, Primo Levi , 1947
Thanks to Laura Z. for this fragment of memory
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