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.

  • Borekh Olitsky (Baruch Olitsky)

    Not prophets, apostles
    not extinguished suns
    not unfortunate mountains and valleys
    have come to warn, to tell –
    quiet, simple folk representations
    brothers with hammers, sheers, awls
    have printed the warning signs
    and posted them on streets and corners
    brothers probably stand now behind bars
    like stunned pale statues
    and may be mistaken
    their bones are already overgrown with grass
    let’s not go there

    In short
    A thirst in Rome has aroused the hunters
    and Jesus is their protector.
    Do you hear? Bend forward your ear.
    A thirst in Rome has provoked the hunters
    and right away with weapons,
    tumult and chase they cry blood!

    The bells are ringing
    Arousing:
    Like frighteners
    And chase the dreams behind all doors
    and ferocious screaming;
    Blood!
    For the hunters
    For grass
    For Almighty Cesar
    We must slake our thirst
    Blood!

    And who will protect
    and who will defend
    the holiday dreaming and streaming of Nile.
    So quiet it is
    and locked silent the lips
    hoorah for blood!

    Flesh of a calf is weighed by the pound
    there’s a price for the wool of a sheep
    but human flesh is weighed by the ton
    and human hair – dirt cheap

    See how fine the peonies bloom
    how beautifully the chrysanthemums dream
    fascist scum pray and rob
    give them flowers with a whip – true?
    Are we in night or is it day now?
    A black wind rises
    the louvres of my comfort
    and brings a child

    An Abyssinian Child:
    The child cries and glows and glows
    “I’ve not been secretly given away
    haven’t touched the shadow of his fence
    why do I smell of iodine?
    Why do I smell of death?

    Is it night now? Or is it morning?
    Who has the secret key?
    I just know that blood I see on my fingers
    and my eyes are blazing green

    In my soul the Abyssinian child
    cries and black wind carries more and more
    Well, I did not need to think another minute
    and in the darkness of my black night
    my fingers wrote compulsively ten times
    without any sense;
    Blood!
    And – strangle Mussolini…

    (more…)

  • Ber Horovits

    Tonight, in a dream
    there came to me
    a young lover
    who tenderly look me by the hand

    (more…)

  • Moyshe Shimel (Maurycy Szymel)

    A fiddle is playing in a country green
    Where I am not and will never be

    A sunny house is blossoming in a white land
    Where I am not and will never be

    (more…)

  • Borekh Gelman

    Every day, every plain day
    my blood shivers in my body
    every day, every ordinary day
    my blood responds to a call

    A wave inside echoes in my blood
    like a bell – in the night – so bright
    the world hangs in troubled pain of the world
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

    (more…)

  • 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

    (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…)