What if...

the Jewish Genocide had been livestreamed?

(For a reading of this poem, click the link to my TikTok below)

What if the Jewish genocide had been livestreamed?
After years of ignoring apartheid,
excusing pogroms,
turning away from ghetto displacements,
neverminding mobile executions—
at last, the Final Solution,
streaming through the bluelight of screens.

Would the world have witnessed flesh
catch fire through oven doors,
bones pushing through skin by starvation,
the screams clawing at gas chamber walls,
the cries of terrified, unaccompanied children?

Would it have been enough to stop the trains,
to tear down the gates, the fences?
Or would the world have turned away then,
just as it does now?

The pattern remains:
Not seeing.
Not believing.
Not feeling.
Not caring.

The white knights waited—then, as now—
until it was convenient for them.

Survivors must have carried so much rage,
betrayal simmering under the surface—
so tired of being cast out and ignored.
Yet, they were forced to perform gratitude.

Saved, yet unwanted as refugees,
their worth debated,
their humanity dismissed.
The West, absolving its own guilt,
offered rescue—but refused
to hold the weight of their trauma.

What happens to that rage,
the screams of, What took so long?
Why were we not believed?
When do those questions find their reckoning?

Moves were made, belatedly,
after 36% had been erased.
Photos were taken,
museums built,
walls erected—
a pain transformed into power,
covered over with time,
and unhealed.

Yet some understood.
Some, touching the raw edges of their scars,
stand in the streets decades later,
protesting new bloodshed on old ground.

They understand that "never again"
was not meant for one people alone.
Their grief opened them,
softened the borders of identity,
let them see the suffering of the other.

“To forget the dead would be to kill them a second time,”
Elie Wiesel said.
But what if refusing to feel the dead
kills the living again and again?

Where is the healing?
Where is the reclamation of humanity
that could have soothed these wounds
if the pain had been welcomed,
not buried beneath entitlements, monuments and flags?

The Western mandate to “move on,”
to “rise above,”
so often repeated—
leaves all scars to fester,
until they consume the flesh of others.

Unhealed pain twists into violence.
Grief hardens, becomes armor.
Each scar—a sharpened edge—
cutting through the unbearable weight
never supposed to be carried alone.

And what of those who enable?
Riding in on white horses,
armor gleaming, dripping with blood.
They clamor to save the "strategic victim,"
not the most vulnerable,
never the forgotten—but those
who serve their own agenda.

They throw lifelines not from love,
but to bury their guilt,
to obscure their complicity.
They save to save themselves,
to make the world forget
the atrocities committed by their own hands.

“You deserve this,” they say,
“Because you were hurt first” they say.
And so, the cycle churns—
the wounded turned into weapons,
their pain an excuse to maim.

The white knights,
with their hands slick with old betrayals,
hand out flags and crowns instead of healing.
Their rescue is another form of violence,
another theft of dignity.

What if they had dared to stop the bleeding?
To tend the wounds they caused,
not with power, not with control,
but with care so pure it burned through pretense?

What if a people were received,
not for what they could become,
nor what guilt they could erase—
but because they were human?

What if rage, grief, and betrayal
were welcomed into the light—
not cast aside,
nor polished into monuments,
but held tenderly,
grieved deeply,
allowed to heal?

Hurt people hurt people—
but healing people heal people.
Those who have faced their pain,
felt its depth,
understand that the past need not be repeated
for the future to be redeemed.

The ache of being saved,
but never known,
of being given safety,
but not humanity,
remains too deep to bury.

So it lies crushed but visible,
limbs out,
between concrete slab and rubble,
covered in dust and blood,
calling out to be seen and rescued.
Will they listen?
Will we?