{"id":784,"date":"2017-02-16T12:41:29","date_gmt":"2017-02-16T17:41:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/?p=784"},"modified":"2025-08-18T15:07:36","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T20:07:36","slug":"february-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/february-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"February, 2017: Mother and Daughter – Poem by Jennifer Franklin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jennifer Franklin<\/strong><\/p>\n

Poet Jennifer Franklin wrote this haunting poem, based on photo (below) of an unknown mother and daughter, from The Last Album: Eyes from the Ashes of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Like all the other photos in the book, this photo was found in Auschwitz-Birkenau after liberation, but remained virtually unknown until many years later. <\/p>\n

Jennifer Franklin explains: <\/p>\n

“One Photograph” was written in response to this heart-wrenching photo of a mother and daughter who were murdered in the gas chambers at Auschwitz, seen in Ann Weiss’ book,
\nThe Last Album: Eyes from the Ashes of Auschwitz-Birkenau.<\/u><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

ONE PHOTOGRAPH<\/p>\n

They hold nothing but each other. Fixed
\nlike this forever, mother and daughter\u2014<\/p>\n

their love survives, testament to life before
\nGod\u2019s great silence. No one alive knows<\/p>\n

their names or will. Maybe it is wrong for me
\nto mourn them. But I put what remains in a small<\/p>\n

pewter frame next to my dead grandmother
\nand her sister. When you rest your hands<\/p>\n

on my shoulders, I think of them\u2014the mother
\nin her housecoat, blossoming roses, the girl<\/p>\n

in her swimsuit, tummy round and innocent.
\nIn the cold cattle car, they had no nest<\/p>\n

but each other. Human cries around them
\ndrowned out owls in autumn, smothered<\/p>\n

everything but stars that watched them suffer.
\nI hope they were together when they died\u2014<\/p>\n

that their eyes were the last of what they saw
\nin this fallen world. Even in the thick darkness<\/p>\n

of my living room, I see them: embracing,
\nalways almost kissing.<\/p>\n

This poem is included in the anthology, Borderlands and Crossroads: Writing the Motherland<\/u> (2016), which collects the work of forty-three award-winning writers who explore maternal landscapes. Spanning the globe, these intimate and honest narratives cross borders and define crossroads that are personal and political, old and new. Published by Demeter Press, founded in 2006, this independent feminist press publishes literature on mothering, reproduction, sexuality, and family.<\/p>\n

Jennifer Franklin, poet, is Co-Editor<\/i> of Slapering Hol Press, and Program Director of The Hudson Valley Writers’ Center<\/i> 300 Riverside Drive \/ Sleepy Hollow, NY 10591 www.writerscenter.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jennifer Franklin Poet Jennifer Franklin wrote this haunting poem, based on photo (below) of an unknown mother and daughter, from The Last Album: Eyes from the Ashes of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Like all the other photos in the book, this photo was found in Auschwitz-Birkenau after liberation, but remained virtually unknown until many years later. Jennifer Franklin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fromann","category-previous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1716,"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions\/1716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}