The Lion and the Mouse

“Kamarad” regularly published articles which portrayed the reality of ghetto life, adventure stories, reports of soccer matches held in the ghetto, riddles, puzzles and poems.

Some of the poems expressed the children’s longing to return to their homes and their pre-war childhood. Other poems were funny and humorous. But through the humorous words you can sometime hear the children's pain.

Read the poem. Who do the lion and the mouse stand for?

What can we learn from the moral of the poem about the lives and hopes of the Jewish children in the ghetto?

The Lion and the Mouse

There once was a lion
Who coveted the blood of mice;
A mouse came running,
As fat as a hamburger.
The king of animals grabbed him
Thirsty for his blood.

The mouse cried, shivered
Begged for mercy:
“Maybe one day,
You'll need my help”.
Since he begged so much
The lion opened his claws.

The mouse dashed off and ran
Quickly back into his hole.
Hunters trapped the lion,
Tied him in a rope to two trees.
All night the captured lion roared,
But couldn’t escape his bonds.

When the mouse heard what happened
He jumped to the lion’s help.
He plunged his sharp teeth into the ropes
And chewed them to pieces.
This is how the mighty lion was saved
By a tiny mouse.

The moral of the story
Is that one hand washes the other,
It is not the size that matters
And even a tiny mouse can be a savior.

Michael Kraus (Kamarad, p. 18)