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Detemination is a
one way path.
Only those who are strong can travel the road.
You can't turn back,
you can only keep going.
Death is waiting
for the ones that stop believing.
The fighting is over
now,
but we have not won, only survived.
Where have all the others gone you ask?
They were lost to the gas chambers,
guns, and starvation.
They were lost to illness,
exhaustion, and depression.
They were lost to countless wounds
and ropes for hanging.
But I wouldn't, I couldn't let myself stop believing.
The dying, the camps,
and the torture are through,
but the end of the numbness
just means the beginning of the pain.
I was no one in the ghetto,
just a number with a face.
Now I am a person again,
but a person all alone.
My place of belonging
was burned down.
I cannot go there.
And the camps can never be
a place to call my own.
Our liberators have freed us,
but they do not welcome us.
Freedom has only changed the walls,
it has not broken them.
I have heard of a place of refuge,
a place for Jews to call home.
Perhaps I will travel there
to find my place of peace.
A hard task, a long
journey,
but I am here.
Heaven's wind has guided me
to a world with other tested souls.
Israel, oh Israel, freedom rings in your name.
I am here now to stay.
Determination is a one way path.
Only those who are strong
can travel the road.
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Division
I: Grades 7–9, FIRST PLACE
