The Song Remains – דאָס ליד איז געבליבן

The Song Remains

People of the Warsaw Ghetto merged with a map of the Nazi occupation of Poland

דאָס ליד איז געבליבן

Welcome to our collection of Yiddish poems with English translations from Nazi German occupied Poland. We’ll be publishing one new poem per week into 2027, so be sure to subscribe to get free weekly updates.

  • Mordkhe (Mordechai) Gebirtig

    Once I had a home, a warm safe place
    a bit of furnishings like poor people have
    securely fastened roots of a tree
    I had tied to my poverty

    Once I had a home, a place with a kitchen
    and lived there quietly years long
    had many dear good friends with me
    a home filled with love and songs

    Then came those with anger death and hate
    my poor dear little home
    that I had worked so hard for many years to keep safe
    They broke in and destroyed it in just one day

    They came in with rage and fury
    chased us out of the city with wife and child
    left us without a home like birds without a nest
    not knowing what sins?

    Once I had a home but now it is no more
    for them it was a game my agony
    I’m looking for another home, so hard
    I don’t know whose or for how long it can be…

    Łagiewniki, May 1941

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  • Borekh Olitski

    1

    Not for nothing do childish cries
    sound against my blue windows all night.

    In the morning a mother tossed her 6-day old child
    on to the corner of Karmelicka Street
    Like a wet and broken cradle
    the child lay on the corner at the neck of the street.
    Bearded men came
    well dressed women
    and even the day that bent over
    like a blond waiter
    with a gilded tray
    with white napkins in hand
    and distributed the joy of July

    Not for nothing do childish cries
    sound against my blue windows all night

    2

    Nalewki, Nalewki
    my Yiddish brothers’ beards
    run wet with worry
    and prayer no longer keep eyes
    focused on the sky
    All windmills are stopped
    on the table lie opened letters
    children’s crying is heard
    behind locks and grates
    Woe! Woe!
    We have the right not to empty the pockets
    of red seeds who will plant
    the night fields
    In time for spring?

    Nalewki, Nalewki
    take a look at me
    here sits the grandfather of Trisk
    with bright horns on his forehead.

    3

    How beautiful you are!
    Not in blond corn
    not among roses
    did I find you
    on Smocza Street,
    in the faint glow of hunger
    you rose up.
    Once your blue eyes began to speak
    and trusted me,
    so that my face glowed with spring time
    in the locked medallion of your heart
    and your injured fingers
    from stranger’s laundry
    you sewed out my name…

    (more…)

  • Borekh Olitzki (1907-1941) born in Turzysk (Trisk / Turiis’k), Volhynia, the middle brother in a literary family. Borekh was educated in a kheder (religious school). He lost his father during the First World War, and moved to Ratno (Ratne) where he lived with an uncle. He taught throughout Volhynia, and later in Łódź and Warsaw where he was beloved by his students and regarded as a one of the more talented poets of the new generation of Jewish writers.

    Due to passport difficulties he was forced to live in Lachowicze (Lekhovitsh / Lyakhovichi) where he was killed when the Nazis occupied the town on 24 June 1941.

    A single collection of his poems was published after his death at the initiative of his brother Leyb, titled Mayn blut is oysgemisht (My Blood Is Mixed, 1951)

    (more…)

  • Ber Shnaper

    From Old-fashioned Themes

    Every day at early morning –
    When I open the door to my day
    I believe:
    From today on I start to live

    (more…)

  • Ber Shnaper (1906-1939) was born in Lwów (Lviv / Lvov / Lemberg), the son of a poor cobbler. He studied at the Vienna Hebrew Teachers Seminary. He wrote for a large number of periodicals, and also produced several monographs. Not much is known about his life.

    His poetry volume Bloe Verter is available online.

    Sources:

  • Kalman Lis

    Today my life came to an end,
    Ekh! To hell with such a life as I am living!
    I saw blue children, little hands outstretched
    begging something to be given…

    (more…)

  • Shmuel Vulman

    1.

    Right now – stream your brightest rays
    melt brightness into my eyes
    and pull me into white light
    swimming into a light stream

    (more…)

  • Shmuel Vulman (1896-1941) was born in Kałuszyn, near Warsaw into a poor Hassidic family. He moved to Warsaw in 1917, and became active in the left Labour Zionists. He published poetry in many Yiddish journals, wrote a number of popular books, and also translated works from other languages into Yiddish.

    When the Nazis invaded Poland, he escaped to Białystok which was under Soviet rule, and was persecuted for his prior critical attitude toward Bolshevism. When the Nazis invaded Russia, he moved to Kremenits (in modern Ukraine), where he was killed by the Nazis along with fellow writers Sh. Zaromb and Yerakhmiel Nayberg.

    Vulman also published under the names: Y.-Sh. Prager, Sh.-Z. Vulf, L. (Leyzer) Felzner, Sh. V. Man, A. Masholnu, Sh. V., and Shin-vov, among others.

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  • Ber Horovits

    Hot nights
    have drunk
    our stammering
    Naked we
    rolled around on roses
    Millions of songs
    died then

    (more…)

  • Ber Horovits (1895-1942) was born in the rural village of Majdan, in the Carpathian Mountains of eastern Galicia. He received a traditional Jewish education at home, and also studied at a Ukrainian primary school, and graduated from the Polish gymnasium in Stanisławów.

    He fought for the imperial Austro-Hungarian army during the First World War, and later studied medicine in Vienna. He was associated with a group of Yiddish authors in Vienna including Avrom Moyshe Fuks, Melech Ravitch, and Moyshe Zilburg.

    He later moved to Kraków, where he translated and adapted plays for the Krakover Yidish Teater, and ultimately back to Stanisławów.

    According to Melech Ravitch, “Ber Horowitz is one of the powerful Jewish poets. He sings loudly. His poetry is noisy, even the quiet tenor of his lyrics is noisy … He uses a language that is semi-gentile, Judeo-Slavic pidgin Yiddish. He is a splendid representative and this alone has a bit of a stir for him: What am I?”

    He was also a gifted artist.

    He was murdered by the Nazis at the age of forty-seven. According to the oral testimony of three Jewish survivors, he died on Hoshana Rabbah, 1942, with 9,000 Jews in Stanislawów. According to another source, he was murdered by local peasants in his birthplace of Majdan.

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