The Little Boy with His Hands Up

The Little Boy with His Hands Up

By Yala Korwin

Your open palms raised in the air
like two white doves
frame your meager face,
your face contorted with fear,
grown old with knowledge beyond your years.
Not yet ten. Eight? Seven?
Not yet compelled to mark
with a blue star on white badge
your Jewishness.

No need to brand the very young.
They will meekly follow their mothers.

You are standing apart
With blank, resigned stares.
All the torments of this harassed crowd
Are written on your face.
In your dark eyes – a vision of horror.
You have seen Death already
On the ghetto streets, haven’t you?
Do you recognize it in the emblems
Of the SS-man facing you with his camera?

Like a lost lamb you are standing
Apart and forlorn beholding your own fate.

Where is your mother, little boy?
Is she the woman glancing over her shoulder
At the gunmen at the bunker’s entrance?
Is it she who lovingly, though in haste,
Buttoned your coat, straightened your cap,
Pulled up your socks?
Is it her dreams of you, her dreams
Of a future Einstein, a Spinoza,
Another Heine or Halévy
They will murder soon?
Or are you orphaned already?
But even if you still have a mother,
She won’t be allowed to comfort you
In her arms.

Her tired arms loaded with useless bundles
Must remain up in submission.

Alone you will march
Among other lonely wretches
Toward your martyrdom.

Your image will remain with us
And grow and grow
To immense proportions,
To haunt the callous world,
To accuse it, with ever stronger voice,
In the name of the million youngsters
Who lie, pitiful rag-dolls,
Their eyes forever closed.

Summary of The Little Boy with His Hands Up

  • Popularity of “The Little Boy with His Hands Up”: The poem The Little Boy with His Hands Up” by Yala Korwin, a great Polish poet, and writer, is a highly tragic poem about the Holocaust. The poem first appeared in her collection, To Tell the Story — Poems of the Holocaust, published in 1987 by a Holocaust Library. It revolves around the horrors of the Holocaust that even after ages the world fails to forget that tragedy. It also highlights the maltreatment Jewish received just because of their identity. Although the poem focused on a universal theme, yet the portrayal of that tragic incident through a child’s eye makes this poem unique and inspiring.
  • “The Little Boy with His Hands Up”, As a Representative of Sadness: Written from a young lady’s perspective, the poem sheds light on an important historical event, Holocaust. It begins with the description of an innocent Jewish child standing on the verge of death and destruction. The writer beautifully illustrates the fear, anxiety, and horrors of the upcoming death on his face. She compares him to an innocent lamb standing apart and waiting for his own distinct fate. The speaker further extends her pity toward the boy when she inquires about his mother. She narrates how his kind mother watches him helplessly from the crowd and cannot comfort her poor son. Although the boy is dying helplessly in the hands of soldiers, yet his death will never go in vain. It will haunt the upcoming generations and keep reminding them of the discrimination and destruction of the Jewish in the hands of Nazis.
  • Major Themes in “The Little Boy with His Hands Up”: Death, man versus fate, and holocaust are the major themes of the poem. Although many poems have been produced on this topic, “The Little Boy with His Hands Up” details the painful destruction of the Jews from an innocent boy’s eyes. He, along with other innocent youngsters, was caught up and brutally murdered following enmity and hostility. She describes how in hatred, people become so blind that they don’t even leave children. The boy has to meet his grim future; he is separated from his mother and is standing at a point where he can only see his death. Through this simple poem, the speaker illustrates that the holocaust was one of the most heinous crimes against humanity.

Analysis of Literary Devices Used in “The Little Boy with His Hands Up”

literary devices help the readers to target the central idea of the poem. The analysis of the devices used in this beautiful poem is as follows.

  1. Assonance: Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in the same line such as the sound of /e/ and /o/ in “grown old with knowledge beyond your years” and again the sound of /o/ in “In your dark eyes – a vision of horror.”
  2. Alliteration: Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds in the same line such as the sound of /l/ in “Like a lost lamb” and /t/ in “the torments of this.”
  3. Consonance: Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds in the same line such as the sound of /r/ in “In your dark eyes – a vision of horror” and the sound of /t/ in “My At the gunmen at the bunker’s entrance?”
  4. Enjambment: It is defined as a thought in verse that does not come to an end at a line break; rather, it rolls over to the next line. For example:

Alone you will march
Among other lonely wretches
Toward your martyrdom.”

  1. Imagery: Imagery is used to make readers perceive things involving their five senses. Yala Korwin has used imagery in this poem such as “Your open palms raised in the air”, “All the torments of this harassed crowd,” and “At the gunmen at the bunker’s entrance.”
  2. Metaphor: It is a figure of speech in which an implied comparison is made between the objects that are different. The poet has used helplessness as an extended metaphor just to show how Jews suffered at the hands of Nazis.
  3. Rhetorical Question: Rhetorical question is a question that is not asked in order to receive an answer; it is just posed to make the point clear. Yala Korwin has posed rhetorical questions at many places in the poem to emphasize her point such as; “Or are you orphaned already?” and “Of the SS-man facing you with his camera?”
  4. Simile: It is a device Used to compare something with something else to make the meanings clear to the readers. Korwin has used this device in the third stanza of the poem where he compares the boy with lamb such as;

“Like a lost lamb you are standing
Apart and forlorn beholding your own fate.”

  1. Symbolism: Symbolism is using symbols to signify ideas and qualities, giving them symbolic meanings that are different from literal meanings. The poem shows symbols like fate, suffering, and horror to show how sometimes life takes an unexpected turn and snatches all the glories from one’s life.

Analysis of Poetic Devices Used in “The Little Boy with His Hands Up”

Poetic and literary devices are the same, but a few are used only in poetry. Here is the analysis of some of the poetic devices used in this poem.

  1. Diction and Tone: The poem shows descriptive diction with rhetorical questions but the tone is highly lugubrious and tragic.
  2. Free Verse: Free verse is a type of poetry that does not contain patterns of rhyme or meter. This is a free verse poem with no strict rhyme or meter.
  3. Stanza: A stanza is a poetic form of some lines. There are eight stanzas in this poem with each having different lines.

Quotes to be Used

These lines from “The Little Boy with His Hands Up” are suitable to quote while recalling the great wars that targeted innocent souls and killed them in the name of enmity.

“Your image will remain with us
And grow and grow
To immense proportions,
To haunt the callous world,
To accuse it, with ever stronger voice.”