a ship and Germany

a ship and Germany

Unter den Linden, I have a soft spot for the German language
when a toddler, I had free access to a military camp where
they had enormous horses and let me sit on top of one of them
(looking up horses, I think they were Belgian draft horses)
Since I was 5 years old at the time
I reserve the right to be wrong
My mother said I could speak a little German
I don't think so
but when the Brits and the Americans came
my few words of German were too soon forgotten.
In the late fifties, I was onboard an old ship that had survived the war
but needed its motor seen to in Bremerhaven
the town bore scars of the devastating war
 but there was full employment
and everyone was doing something worthwhile, like the farmer who took
took food scraps from ships and fed them to his pigs later
sold for slaughter through ship-chandelier to the merchant ship
.No, Bremerhaven was not Unter den Linden
Not a tree left, cold had the aftermath been
It was a spring walk along the streets
where people sat out telling stories and laughing.
There was a sense of comradeship that made me feel
the trauma they had gone through 
At that time, there were no beggars, no one was following me around in the hope
of getting some coins, which was annoying in places like Kingston
in Jamaica and other places
Germany has not hither played the leading role
a great nation in Europe
this is because of the burden of the Holocaust
a burden unfairly put on the Germans alone to bear
is coming to an end,
I think so is the headless policy of not being critical of Israel's policies,
which makes many countries guilty of aiding and abetting the genocide
of the Palestinian people