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

    Oh, poor foolish singer
    you are not yet good at your work
    Does your song echo there?
    you crawl only to wealthy yards

    The wealthy, the rich magnates
    your sad spirit can’t move them
    They will not give you two cents
    they are not moved by your song

    So, if you want fame for your singing
    and to earn money as well?
    Go look for them in poor yards
    and sing your song where they dwell

    And sing the song of loneliness
    sad song of hunger and pain
    of crowded dark dirty houses
    where death’s angel freely reigns

    Of pale crippled children
    nourished on dry empty breast
    they wilt before blooming
    and find comfort in death.

    Yes sing them sad songs of their
    troubled lives
    written for them to give comfort
    to their loud mourning cries.

    (more…)

  • Borekh Olitzki (Baruch Olitzky)

    A

    Like fish with mother of pearl
    clouds swim in the cool sky
    and from their feathers flow
    drip drops clouded with the sun
    into the dark mouth of earth
    A bright lit swallow circles quietly up and up
    hooked on a circling whirlwind
    Every tree is loaded with green earth
    with blue joy and secrets from the West.

    Spring-life! Look, look:
    You are being welcomed by White Russian towns
    with pails empty to their bottom
    Unemployment greets you keeping track
    with froth on mouth where hungry children
    with blistered skin and dark worms’ nest
    stick into the walls of the closets

    B

    A loud radio delivers to the open palms of leaves
    through air and streets throughout the world
    with grey sacks behind eyes with fevered fingers
    to choke someone’s neck…
    Young folks drink every evening on this street, the wine
    from Barcelona and sing Yiddish folk songs in Minsk

    And the last bit of joy jumps out of
    naked skin and runs barefoot on steps
    to peacock ends of flying stars, bursting suddenly
    filled with provocation
    with bloody terror
    and with the sparkle of a leper’s eye.

    Zdziecioł (Zhetl / Dyatlovo) 1937

    (more…)

  • Miryem (Miriam) Ulinover

    The noisemaker knocks
    we can hardly hear
    past the din
    people what we dream

    My dress is loose
    and moves that way and this
    And becomes a
    wild crimson mess

    (more…)

  • Moyshe Shimel (Maurycy Szymel)

    Love have I for all that lives in song
    Birds, women in blue hats
    A tree, a street, a wall
    All that is familiar and what’s not

    And what is past and what will be:

    Jericho’s walls
    Lemberger wind that rushes in my ears
    And the clever silent stone
    That will someday mark my grave

    Because all that lives is resisting death
    (He breaths through the nostrils of black burial horses,
    and blushes passionately in dusky red)

    Therefore, these are good:
    The birds, the young women in blue hats
    The blood
    And headstones in cemeteries covered with light fallen snow.

    (more…)

  • Y L Kohn

    I moved out of the workshop to the Union
    into the library, organizing and youth club
    a new environment replaced my poor
    little sorrowful home

    (more…)

  • Mordkhe (Mordechai) Gebirtig

    Jews, let us be cheerful!
    It won’t be long, I hope —
    The war will soon be over,
    And soon their end will come.
    Be cheerful and don’t worry!
    Don’t carry on in grief;
    Have patience and have confidence —
    Take hard times in your stride.

    (more…)

  • Borekh Gelman

    Who is this he who is following us close
    in your every step there?
    Through every crack in a mouse hole
    you feel his cold watching stare…

    His look is ice cold
    with mustache sticky and damp
    with paws slippery with evil
    crept up on your skin

    (more…)

  • Kalman Lis

    (From the series: Time-Motifs)

    Who else like me – for generations kindred with the field, with grass and stalk,
    joined to my border, with air and earth –
    can say: let the axe be like a sword – a ritual slaughterer’s knife sharp in the enemy’s cold hand,
    I’m not going to be moved!

    (more…)

  • Moyshe Shimel (Maurycy Szymel)

    Summer dear, you come home so brown so hot
    You fall on me breathing heavy: what heat!
    And I write about fjords – watery inlets
    And believe my song will protect me
    From the noisy outdoors, the big back yard
    Where people are shouting noisily all day: I buy and I sell

    (more…)

  • Khayim Semiatitski

    1.

    The night – a hungry dark dog –
    has licked the red blood of the west
    and quietly laid down on the earth
    Three crows stand on my roof and curse;
    one pecks at my heart,
    the heart has bloodied my way
    now dogs lick at my ways

    (more…)