For Ritta

Jana Zimmer
USA - California 1997

USA/Czech Republic

My sister died before I was a little girl.
She was put in a gas chamber in a
concentration camp.

My daddy was so sad he couldn’t stop
them so he made another little girl right
away so he could forget about Ritta and
be happy again

Only this was not ok with G-d. G-d
thought that this was too fast so he
played a trick on Daddy. He took
Ritta’s soul, which was still very upset
from being starved and gassed and
burned and sent it back to Earth.

Normally a soul would be allowed to
float around out there for a couple
hundred years or more to calm down
after doing Life. So it was shocking for
Ritta’s soul to come back too quickly
and-this was the mean part-to be
stuck in Janicka’s body.

This was very hard for me. I thought I
was supposed to smile. Everyone
wanted me to be a happy pretty little girl
so they could be happy and forget. But,
too bad looked like a bullfrog and I
could tell they thought that and were
ashamed. So no smiles. They didn’t
know about Ritta’s soul and that it took
up so much space may own little heart
didn’t have room to beat.

So along we went, poor starved gassed
and burned Ritta and what was left of
me and no one knew so I was very sad
and lonely. And poor Daddy couldn’t
forget Ritta because she was inside the
little bullfrog.