The year is 1945,
And World War 2 I have survived.

With Hitler dead,
The war is won,
I feel my war has just begun,
So many horrors,
Men dying in pain,
And all of their lives were taken in vain.

These memories I cannot shake,
Innocent men, dead, unable to wake,
Will never know what they have lost,
For they have paid the final cost,
But they are heroes,
Through and through,
For these men died for me and you.

From early dawn, and all through the night,
These brave men fought for what was right,
Not out of hate and not out of spite,
Not out of joy, or out of delight,
No, they fought for each other,
Their families, their friends,
They fought for freedom,
To bring war to an end.

So victory is never free,
The whole world weeps with agony,
For 60 million lives were lost,
All because of the Holocaust,
And those who lived,
Survived the war,
Are never right, forever more.
For they have lost someone they love,
To a better place, somewhere above.

Friends and foes are scarred for life,
With memories of what it’s like,
To hear the whining sound of guns,
To kill fathers, brothers, husbands, sons,
To see the early morning glow,
To spend all winter in the snow,
To wake one morning, only to find,
Your childhood friend was left behind,
To fear not death, but life itself,
For every minute lived is hell.

And standing here I wonder why,
Why I should live while others die.
And looking down into the sea,
The waves in perfect harmony,
Are crashing down upon my ship,
We sail towards home,
But in our wake,
We leave behind our great mistake.

The shock, the love, the agony,
The hope, the pain, the ecstasy,
The truth, the lies, the unavenged,
The pride, the fear, the acts of men,
So many things I cannot tell,
For lost and forgotten, inside those who fell,
Are stories of acts, brave, noble, and bold,
Gone with brave soldiers, who will not grow old.

The ocean rougher than before,
I cannot take this anymore,
I close my eyes and take a breath,
I jump and put my soul at rest.