The Holocaust Seven

      After World War II people came to America to start new lives.  These were people who had lost everything; homes, families, countries, they lost it all.  They were referred to as “Displaced Persons” or Dee Pees in common usage.



         On a nice sunny summer day I went to the Laundromat to pick up dad’s shirts.  The man behind the counter was familiar to me.  He never spoke and would barely smile and give a nod.  The man behind the counter was a Dee Pee.  I paid and he handed me the change.  His sleeves were rolled up and as he handed me the change I saw it, a number tattooed on the inside of his wrist.  I knew what it was and what it meant and why it was there.  After the war the camps and their horrors were well known.



         What particularly stood out was the seven.  It was thin and runic and had a crossbar.  I had seen this style of seven before and knew it was foreign. But here it was way beyond foreign.  Here it was evil.  Here it was a man who had no say being tattooed by a man who thought of him as nothing.  The sunny summer day disappeared.



         I wanted to say something to him, anything, but I couldn’t.  A nice sunny summer day did not have the words for the nazi seven.  Whenever I encounter that style of seven I think of the man and how he never talked.  I’ll never forget him and I think poorly of the people who use that seven.