"If This is a Man" by Primo Levi

     You who live safe
     In your warm houses,
     You who find, returning in the evening,
     Hot food and friendly faces:

     Consider if this is a man
     Who works in the mud,
     Who does not know peace,
     Who fights for a scrap of bread,
     Who dies because of a yes or a no.
     Consider if this is a woman
     Without hair and without name,
     With no more strength to remember,
     Her eyes empty and her womb cold
     Like a frog in winter.

     Meditate that this came about:
     I command these words to you.
     Carve them in your hearts
     At home, in the street,
     Going to bed, rising;
     Repeat them to your children.

     Or may your house fall apart,
     May illness impede you,
     May your children turn their faces from you.