Everyone says I am fortunate.

“Lucky,” they say.

“You were lucky.”

“You got away when others did not.”

“You and your brother escaped

The Nazi terrors.”

“You were so lucky

to be sent to England

to live where it was safe.”

Was it luck that put me, a Jewish girl,

   in Mainz Germany on

      Kristallnacht?

Was it luck that only my father

   was arrested and sent to

   Buchenwald?

Was it luck that got me a seat 

   on a train bound for the Dutch coast

   then on to English shores

where Nazi bombs fell day and night?

Was it luck that guided my life for 7 ½ years

   separated from the only life

   I had ever known

        and loved?

Yes, maybe I was fortunate

all those years ago.

But, had I not been a Jewish girl 

living in 1939 Nazi Germany  

I would not have needed

all this ‘luck’

for my very

Survival.