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Where Was God?
By W.F.Randle © January 1999
Where was God on that day when the storm-troopers came,
When they rampaged and goose-stepped all through the town?
Did He turn a blind eye when they spat on his name,
When they cheered as they burned all the synagogues down?
When the twisted black cross on the banners unfurled
Black symbol of evil, cruel emblem of hate,
Did God hear the message it sent to the world,
That freedom was crushed by the power of the State?
Where was God on that night when they, they smashed all the glass
In the shops where his star had been splattered with shame?
Did he stand on one side for the brown-shirts to pass
On their way to destroy all those books in the flame?
Where was God when they knocked on the door in the night,
With their black leather shrouds and their arrogant sneer?
Did he bury his head? Did he hide from their sight,
When whole families taken would just disappear?
In the ghettos they starved and they froze and they died.
Did God see the soldiers beating them there?
Did He comfort the sick and the children who cried?
Did He reach out to them in their blackest despair?
When the cattle trucks clattered their way to the camps
With their cargo of humans crammed in like sheep
When all hope of freedom died there on those ramps
As they clambered aboard then, was God fast asleep?
They were beaten and cursed and abused to their deaths
By the guards with their "orders" and duty to do.
As they stifled their pain, as they drew their last breaths
Did God see it all? Did he suffer there, too?
Where was God, Oh where, in those dreadful dark hours
When they lined them all up and they stripped them all bare?
When the cyanide fell from those satanic showers
As they writhed and they choked was God with them there?
Just above in the flowers a small orchestra played
To muffle the screams from the chamber below.
Did God hear them scream as the dark chimneys sprayed
Their clouds of white ashes which settled like snow?
Did God weigh the gold from the teeth put in store
Or count all the spectacles,coats, hats and shoes
While the flames in the ovens continued to roar
As the "final solution" got rid of those Jews?
Where was God in that genocide's evil design?
Where was God as they cried out in pain and despair?
Where was He? Why didn't he show them a sign,
As the state snuffed them out - O God, did you care?
Where was God as the holocaust took them to die?
Six million and more asked again and again.
God was there all along and he waited close by
But mankind, who he loved, had abandoned him then.
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from the August 2008 Edition of the Jewish Magazine
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