Wannsee: A Poem for Yom HaShoah

Sheep clouds and sandy light, white sails and motor boats
This summer escape was built in 1907
for the working class of Berlin, who could not afford the Baltic Sea
Then and now a crowded beach
young women posing in deck chairs
Pine cones, yellow flowers
soda fizzing red and green in leafy shadows

One afternoon we plowed, arms hooked, through shallow water
the ferry to Peacock Island in the distance
reed grass rustling in the sudden silence
That’s how you find a drowned body
the lifeguard explained
by marching as one long chain of humans
The loudspeaker blared
and I thought of the cheery post-war tune
sung by an eight-year old, “The Little Cornelia,”
about children riding their bikes out to Wannsee
underneath a canopy of pines and patches of blue sky

The song didn’t exist in 1942, neither did little Cornelia
and it was January
the beach across the lake closed for the season
but the view and shoreline were the same —
Did any of them let their mind wander to the summer ahead
to riding their bikes through the forest
running into the cool, soft Wannsee
lifting their daughter up into the air, water dripping from her blond curls?

A student at the Ziegler School for Rabbinic Studies, Julia Knobloch published her debut poetry collection, “Do Not Return,” with Broadstone Books and has a new chapbook forthcoming with Ben Yehuda Press.