Ani Difranco - My Name Is Lisa Kalvelage Lyrics
My name is Lisa Kalvelage, I was born in NurembergAnd when the trials were held there nineteen years agoIt seemed to me ridiculous to hold a nation all to blameFor the horrors that the world did undergoA short while later when I applied to be a G. I. brideAn American consular official questioned meHe refused my exit permit, said my answers did not showI'd learned my lesson about responsibility.Thus suddenly I was forced to start thinking on this themeAnd when later I was permitted to emigrateI must have been asked a hundred times where I was and what I didIn those years when Hitler ruled our stateI said I was a child or at most a teen-agerBut that only extended the questioningThey'd ask, where were my parents, my father, my motherAnd to this I could answer not a thing.The seed planted there at Nuremberg in 1947Started to sprout and to growGradually I understood what that verdict meant to meWhen there are crimes that I can see and I can knowAnd now I also know what it is to be charged with mass guiltOnce in a lifetime is enough for meNo, I could not take it for a second timeAnd that is why I am here today.The events of May 25th, the day of our protest,Put a small balance weight on the other sideHopefully, someday my contribution to peaceWill help just a bit to turn the tideAnd perhaps I can tell my children sixAnd later on their own childrenThat at least in the future they need not be silentWhen they are asked, "Where was your mother, when?"
