A Promise That Brought Me Home

Gold Key · Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, Northeast Region · 2026

A poem inspired by the resilience of a young girl during the Holocaust, who carries her mother’s final words as a promise to protect her younger brother. Through grief, fear, and uncertainty, she discovers the strength to preserve her mother's love amid unimaginable loss.

In shadows deep 
where silence fled
A young girl stood,
her heart heavy,
full of dread.
The world outside was storming with pain
yet in her mind
A mother's whisper still remained.

“Take care of your brother for me,” 
echoed a voice.
Those words woven in tears,
where hope nearly bled.
The woman held them close,
tight,
like a delicate thread
A promise left unbroken
though all else has fled.

The sun took its bow, as shadows stretched long
Yet in her heart still echoed her mother’s song.
Each word a caress
guiding her through the night.
In the midst of such sorrow,
A flicker of light.

Be brave, my sweet child, 
when the world feels so vast,
hold him through darkness
until this war shall pass.
A pact made in whispers
as her mother's soul took flight.

In every soft cry of her brother’s sweet call
she would carry their mother’s love through it all.
But in this world turned to ashes
where hope dwindled thin,
The memory of warmth would guide her within.

Though the shadows grew longer,
darker,
and the nights resembled gray,
A mother’s love lingered
like a light on the way.

So she vowed in the stillness,
with tears streaming down her face,
to hold on to courage
when there once was a trace.
With each step she took,
in the echoes of time,
she kept her mother's promise,
A heart's sacred rhyme.