Narrative Poem - Hedi Langfelder

This narrative poem is based on the true story of my grandmother's life. She has told me these stories over and over again. Nowadays, she is peacefully living in the US.

Langfelder, Hedi, 14

From Austria to China, to Australia - San Francisco, January 10, 2009

1938, the year we lost our rights

when Hitler entered Austria.

taking nothing more than we could carry

Leaving behind everything we owned and everything we loved.

In vain we embarked on one of the last ships

Taking on the voyage to China.

I looked at the shore, the continent I wouldn’t see again for over 15 years.

Two months we spent on that ship,

while I was dying to run, dying to scream

dying to be free.

Packed with hundreds of people,

we sailed for what seemed like years,

nothing but water on the horizon,

waiting to see land, our only sign of hope.

We arrived in china, someplace completely strange

Everywhere I looked, my senses were challenged

Mouth hanging open and eyes wide awake,

I couldn’t stop staring at the beauty surrounding me.

Life in China was exciting, as well as frightening

Adapting took time and an open mind

Sooner or later, all of us accepted what life had given us,

Not knowing whether we should be pitied or envied for being here.

I didn’t know what to think nor what to feel, never imagining this would become my home for ten years ...my childhood.

Situations repeated themselves when in 1948, we fled for the second time.

Taking on another trip, fleeing China for Australia,

I looked back at the shore, at china, a place I had called my home for 10 years.

Tears welled up inside of me seeing this part of my life getting smaller at the horizon.

Living in China was a gift, something to be envied.

This was when I realized

Life is what I make of it,

and suddenly, the endless ocean was less frightening than beautiful.