Sonia's Victory

Victory: By Sonia Weitz

"I danced with you that time only.

How sad you were, how tired, lonely...

You knew that they would "take" you soon...

So when your bunk-mate played a tune

You whispered: "little one, let us dance,

We may not have another chance."

To grasp this moment...sense the mood;

Your arms around me felt so good...

The ugly barracks disappeared

There was no hunger...and no fear.

Oh what a sight, just you and I,

My lovely father (once big and strong)

And me, a child...condemned to die.

I thought: how long

before the song

must end

There are no tools

to measure love

and only fools

Would fail

to scale

your victory."

Sonia Weitz, would be called lucky. She took 5 concentration camps; Auschwitz, Plaszow, Bergen-Belsen, Venusburg, Mauthausen, and the Warsaw ghetto, while she was still a young girl, and was standing until her passing on June of 2010. She was and always will be a survivor. When she was sent off to Mauthausen, a concentration camp in upper Austria, she sneaked off to see her father, who was sent there when she was in Auschwitz. Before the Nazi's "took" him, she did sneak off to the men side of the camp, and found her father. This poem was about the moment when she found him, and their final moment. Throughout the poem, the theme turned from desperation, to what the poem was really about; VICTORY! The poem itself was talking about how she shared the moment dancing with her father, and how she was truly happy for the first time when she was in the camps. There was one metaphor that I had found was in the second stanza: "The ugly barracks disappeared. There was no hunger... and no fear." It was saying that Sonia was living in the moment, that nothing could take her from her father right then and there. But really, barracks can't disappear out of thin air, and she was very hungry and fearful of when the Nazi's would take him away from her. In the second stanza, there was another quote: "My lovely father (once big and strong)". This shows that even though the camps made him weak and powerless, they could never take away his strength inside and his love for his daughters. Sonia Weitz, at the time, believed that she was destined to die, when she said: "And me, a child... condemned to die." But she didn't! She didn't have hope at the time, but when she danced with her father, she got hope, and thought that everything would be okay. My favorite part out of the whole poem, was at the end: "and only fools would fail to scale your victory. " The poem was about sharing this moment with her father, even though it was breaking the rules. Through her words, it was easy to see that this was something that the Nazi's, or anyone couldn't take away, and will last her forever.   

-R