It Can't Happen Here (Revised) Poem by John F. McCullagh

Sara and Stephen were of a marked race,
living at the wrong time, and in the wrong place.
When Hitler took power, they eased each other's fears.
"Germany is civilized, It can't happen here."

When the Chancellor railed against gypsies and Jews
" He's just playing politics" was their commonsense view.
Yet hatred took root; the brown shirts had free run
And the voters had cause to rue what they had done.

Hitler came for their guns and they meekly complied.
Few then thought to resist the strong onrushing tide.
"The Police will protect us, Sara, my dear."
"This is Beethoven's birthplace; it can't happen here."

Those were very hard times, the worst we ever saw.
Rich Jews were resented for the furs that they wore.
"They cost us the war, they are traitors, it's clear."
"Sara, don't worry, it can't happen here."

The foes of this Chancellor disappeared in the night
And he started to speak of a thousand year Reich.
He censored the newspapers; both Left and Right.
And glass littered the streets one November night.

With Hindenburg dead, who was there left to stand?
Who had will to resist that warped little man?
Perves wore Triangles, Juden wore stars
Both lost their rights under Germany's laws.

Sara and Stephen were loaded, like freight,
on a train bound for Dachau by command of the State."
I'm sure we'll be freed, Sara, my dear."
We're a civilized race, this can't happen here."

Stephen worked as a slave but at least stayed alive.
He was freed by the Russians in May, Forty five.
Sara, his wife, had a far crueler fate;
She was sent to the showers by the Nazi's mandate.

Back in Berlin, Stephen saw with his own eyes
that the "Thousand year Reich" was a tissue of lies
First pillaged by brown shirts, then bombed in the war
Stephen thought" This isn't home anymore."

Now Stephen is old, living here in the States.
He looks with dismay at these two candidates.
It seems like a nightmare he lived through before.
A crisis is coming and there will be war.