LIKE SHEEP TO THE SLAUGHTER
from
TO BE AN ARTIST: A Musical Play in Two Acts
Listen to LIKE SHEEP TO THE SLAUGHTER
Words by Judith Weinshall Liberman
Music by Stephen Feig
Copyright © 2023 by Judith Weinshall Liberman

Like sheep to the slaughter
The victims all went,
Men, women and children
In neat lines were sent

To places where they would
Be made to undress
And dig their own graves
And be shot there unless

They died on the road
As they walked all those miles,
Men, women and children
In those long neat files.

Why did our people
Not struggle and fight?
Why so obedient
To power and might?

Why did our brethren
Just simply obey
Those beastly commands
And then become prey?

Was it blindness to evil
Though they saw it quite bare?
Was it faith that God knew
And would hasten to spare

His very own people,
Who all their lives prayed
And kept faith and loved Him
And Him always obeyed?

Like sheep to the slaughter
The victims all went,
Men, women and children
In huge numbers were sent

To camps where they would
Be made to undress
And enter gas chambers
And be killed there unless

They died even before
They got to be gassed
Of starvation, brutality
And all else that passed.

Why did our people
Not struggle and fight?
Why so obedient
To power and might?

Why did our brethren
Just simply obey
Those beastly commands
And then become prey?

Was it blindness to evil
Though they saw it quite bare?
Was it faith that God knew
And would hasten to spare

His very own people,
Who all their lives prayed
And kept faith and loved Him
And Him always obeyed?

When our loved ones
Were burned
In huge ovens
Out there

And through tall
Stacks of smoke
They turned
Right into air,

When our families
Became nothing
But ashes
And smoke,

Did God think
That it was
No more
Than a joke?

Why?