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.

  • Roze Perets-Laks

    Like flowing metal, the December sky.
    Now and then a last skinny leaf falls
    from the naked poplars
    juxtaposed
    like a black winged paw
    that with a wintry sound
    sinks into the snowy-brown
    rotting earth.
    Through the prism of endless melting
    no trace of a path shows
    no trace of a horizon.
    Just Matteus the war invalid
    with his rickety sticklike legs
    like stumps in a felled woods
    travelling step by step
    in his own “bond” with
    the tethered tatty donkey
    and the two of them
    two lost and sick nags
    seeking their home in empty streets
    in the vast December eve.

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • Roze Perets-Laks (1894-1941?) was born in Puławy (Pulavi), in the Lublin district of Poland. She studied dentistry in Warsaw, and later practised as a dentist there. During her time in Warsaw, she spent time in the home of her father’s cousin, the iconic Yiddish writer and poet I L Peretz, and later wrote a memoir about him, Arum Perets (Around Peretz). She married the sculptor Aleksander Laks in 1923, and moved to Vilna, where she lived until the Nazis murdered her in c1941. She published many poems in a variety of publications.

    Source: Congress for Jewish Culture

  • Khayim Semiatitski

    In my shabby home my kingdom blooms.
    Daily at the window dawn arrives
    with a tiding that the sky is now clad in blue.
    I fill my eyes with blue to the brim
    and like a banner, out in the world
    I brandish them.

    Often the sun nears my home,
    greets me as befits a king of Shabby-Land.
    With day on my lap, I sit upon my throne,
    an array of sunbeams the scepter in my hand.

    And so passes hour after hour
    till blue is abolished by evening
    and I am king no longer.
    Long live the king.

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • Khayim Semiatitski

    Evening arrives at
    the river’s shore in rose slippers
    tells the white geese to go to sleep
    and corrals a herd of stars
    to bathe in the river.
    And then it stands
    and washes its dark face
    in the wind and waves
    till morning.

    /MK

    (more…)

  • Ber Horovits

    Not just once
    will you stand at my window
    on wild stormy nights
    bathing your pale blood
    in the anguish of past joy.

    And I will sit with my devoted wife
    hand in hand
    and say:
    – Is this then a night of phantoms?
    Cover up, Lyuba, cover up our child
    in case it awakens and takes fright.
    Rock it, rock it.

    As if guarding against something
    vicious
    she will rock it
    and nestle her dear little head
    against my broad chest.

    And beneath my windows
    along with the wild baying of dogs
    a crying full of sorrow
    of regret and longing
    will drown in the brutal wind.

    /MK

    (more…)

  • Miryem (Miriam) Ulinover

    When dear summer makes its appearance,
    dresses lighten, bright and pleasant;
    I’m the sole one, an exception,
    sheathing myself in a bold red garment.

    (more…)

  • Moyshe Shimel (Maurycy Szymel)

    Summer. Nights are round as moons.
    I love the windswept grasses and the face
    of a woman
    walking on silver paths in the forest depths.

    It’s blue
    and profound loneliness
    streams from underfoot –
    the night is full of all that rustles and blooms.
    And how good it is now like this
    just as before writing a poem
    about windows open to the wind, to night,
    and about white hands on eyes that are closed.

    /MK

    (more…)

  • Mordkhe (Mordechai) Gebirtig

    On the wall, left of my bed
    my daughter’s portrait hangs
    frequently during the night I think of her
    and see her lovely face
    and hear her talk with me…

    “Daddy dear, it’s been so long
    since we have been together
    this war for sure cannot last long
    I promise I will come to you
    I hear spring knocking at your door”
    I see her smiling sweetly speaking love above my bed
    My daughter’s Shifreleh’s Portrait

    Kraków, 2 December 1939

    (more…)

  • Borekh Gelman

    Like a sinking ship in a deep wavy sea
    my little home sank unsteady and alone
    and like hungry dogs in an empty market
    mice ran around crying steadily at night

    (more…)

  • Motl Kozlovski

    The birch tree in the corner of my yard
    trembles with every leaf ashamed
    every branch longs for sun and dew
    in the shade of big locked doors

    (more…)