My name is Lisa Kalvelage, I
And when the trials were held
It seemed to me ridiculous to
hold a nation all to blame
For the horrors that the world did undergo
A short while later when I
applied to be a G. I. bride
He refused my exit permit,
said my answers did not show
I'd learned my lesson about responsibility.
Thus suddenly I was forced to
start thinking on this theme
And when later I was permitted to emigrate
I must have been asked a hundred
times where I was and what I did
In those years when Hitler ruled our state
I said I was a child or at most a teen-ager
But But that only extended the questioning
They'd ask, where were my parents,
And to this I could answer
The seed planted there at
Started to sprout and to grow
Gradually I understood what that
When there are crimes that I
And now I also know what it is to
be charged with mass guilt
Once in a lifetime is enough for me
No, I could not take it for a second time
And that is why I am here today.
The events of May 25th, the
Put a small balance weight
someday my contribution to peace
Will help just a bit to turn the tide
And perhaps I can tell my children six
And later on their own children
That at least in the future they
"Where was your mother, when?"