Adam Boren’s poem was actually inspired by another Holocaust survivor’s poetry. Before Ms. Fishman even began writing, she took her professor’s advice to read poetry written by survivors. She read through multiple survivor’s collections and found them moving and inspiring in terms of her writing. One that stood out to her was Yala Korwin’s poem titled “Such Innocent Words.” It immediately sparked her interest, for it was commanding yet compressed. Thus, Ms. Fishman modeled Mr. Boren’s poem on Mrs. Korwin’s in hopes of obtaining the same sense of condensed power. The most commanding lines are “common words/ transmuted,” for it shows that everything was defiled for those in the Holocaust. Every item or entity held a horror.

This notion stuck with Ms. Fishman as she began writing, and she felt it applied to Mr. Boren. She found him to be a man who spoke with attention to importance, not detail. Thus, she felt that a poem focusing on crucial but minimal verbiage would suit him. Ms. Fishman modeled the poem after Mrs. Korwin’s but added her own elements to it as well. The first line of each two-line group is his pre-tattoo identity, and the second is his perceived identity post-tattoo.

Mr. Boren’s identity post-tattoo is somewhat easy to ascertain. His verbal and nonverbal communication regarding his tattoo can be seen through his VHA testimony and book Journey Through the Inferno. In his book, he divulges little on the tattoo process, but ends his summation of the event with, “from then on I was known as Prisoner 127956.” Additionally, in his testimony, when asked if he can read out his number, he does so in both English and German without hesitation (segments 144-145).3 He explains that his tattoo number became “my name, my address, my identity” and that every time he reported to the Nazis, he would have to identify himself as “Prisoner 127956 reporting” (segments 144-145).3 Mr. Boren fully assumed the identity of his tattoo and number, which is what this poem aimed to illustrate.

 

WORDS

Human  needle  skin

Numb  branded  cattle

 

Face  name  address

Tattoo  numbers  blank

 

Jewish  traditional  man

Hide  conservative  piece

 

Adam  Boren  Identity

Prisoner  127956  Identity