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memories like burrs

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Gertrude Halstead was a young German Jewish woman living in Berlin in the 1930s and witnessed the Nazi rise to power first hand. Gertrude narrowly escaped the Nazi roundups of jews, eventually fleeing to France where she was later sent to an internment camp near the Spanish border. By writing her own liberation papers (and with the help of sympathetic French officers that were in charge of the camp), she was able to flee over the Pyrenees to Lisbon, Portugal, and in 1941, boarded the last passenger ship to leave Europe for the United States. Gertrude lost most of her family who were to perish in the concentration camps of Dachau and Auschwitz. This remarkable woman today lives in Worcester, Massachusetts, and at the age of 90, Memories Like Burrs is her debut poetry collection and stands as a testament to her ability to compose images of words whose emotional impact upon the reader is as memorable as her personal story of survival against horrific odds. Painting: on the back of his old white shirt/i paint nightmares and the sun exploding/cathedral windows and the light always the light/pattern on the stones at Sainte-Chapelle//i paint black books and books burning/i paint you blind because you would tell them nothing/i paint you free falling from that high window ledge/before they kicked your door in//i paint trenches i paint the charred/ribcage of my father's house/i paint the dead ash gray/and the light always the light

at times...a painful remembrance of her hollocust experience, gertrude is very good at making you feel and think about her painful life experience. she can literally make you see what she describes in her poetry. my favorites were "flash flood age 8" and "fear knows no seasons" and "letter to a small kite." i know the author personally and never would have guessed that her childhood was so dreadful as she is a happy, lovely 92 yo who always has something nice to say about everyone. congratulations to gertrude on her publication.