He Comes For The Jewish Family, 1942

HE COMES FOR THE JEWISH FAMILY, 1942

By Sharon Olds

During World War II, Jewish were chased by Germans, taken to concentration camps. Adults, children, men, and women, they were all taken no matter what.

Jewish knew that when Nazis arrived their final destination was going to be a camp or death.

In this poem the family knew what to expect, they knew the German hated them, that he was going to take them to the camps, and their daughter was going to be taken with them, they had no consideration for children.

What they did not know was how easy was for a German to destroy a beautiful instrument like the cello.

It is well known that musical instruments as the guitar or in this case, the cello are somehow the representation of a woman's body.

"What they did not know was the

way he would pick her cello up

by the scroll neck and take its dark

lovely body shape and break it

against the fireplace. The brickwork crushed the

amber satiny wood, they stood and

stared at him in terror."

If I read and analyze these lines of the poem, I cannot tell if the German destroyed the cello or their daughter, what I can tell is that the part of the destruction is a representation of death. The Nazi destroyed a beautiful instrument that creates music, that is a representation of beauty, or he killed the girl, or at least made her parents understand that sooner or later that would be her destiny.

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