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.

  • Moyshe Shimel

    It may be a mistake
    but my mama’s snow was simply white
    and not like the poetic take:
    green, lilac, or violet bright.

    And it didn’t fall quietly and serenely,
    nor like distant stars for which one aches.
    My mama’s snow would come suddenly
    at night, unexpected as the plague.

    Because when it snows in earnest
    children’s jackets are in need of repair
    and all day a fire’s going in the furnace
    though wood and coal in winter are dear.

    Hence I do surmise that ice covering panes
    are not blossoms to admire,
    for when ice forms on windowpanes
    the price of milk goes haywire

    and butter is out of the question –
    and mama coughs and her back is sore —
    And who’s to blame for this situation?
    The dismal snow, the remorseless snow.

    So perhaps that’s why I don’t like it one bit,
    the snow that made mama’s life so bleak.
    And perhaps that’s why I won’t wax poetic,
    for when it snows it brings my mama’s sorrow back to me.

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • Miryem (Miriam) Ulinover

    Between roads wildly overgrown,
    contained by walls hunched from shame,
    with hands tight-fisted as of stone
    lives the miser of this place.

    Once there was a special Sabbath
    and to scatter crumbs he deigned,
    came the birds with beaks all sharpened –
    God forbid they’d peck at these!

    In our book, ancient and holy,
    with its edges bent, it states
    that a bird will not be feeding
    where a stingy hand doth reign.

    The old book has long gone missing
    and the miser laid to earth,
    birds avoid his home completely,
    giving it a big wide berth.

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • Hershele (Hersh Danilewicz)

    Sabbath after eating
    her kugl luncheon,
    Hanna-Rose is standing at
    the mirror in the kitchen.

    Combing out her locks,
    buttoning up her blouse,
    she bounces to the window,
    audaciously looking out.

    Across the way Yoske bides
    and beckons with his finger –
    she bestows her little smile
    that makes his heart lighter.

    In haste she dons a covering,
    leaves the bolt hanging,
    and the shutters banging –
    to Yoske she goes dashing.

    He bids her to go walking,
    for a “conversation”,
    so she abandons everything
    heedless of causing sensation.

    Then the lock is jimmied,
    thieves make off with loot,
    and her failure thus is pealed
    throughout the neighborhood.

    All the women denizens
    throw her dirty looks,
    pouring salt on her distress,
    letting her be smooshed.

    A whole week long
    she’s forced to endure this —
    but when the Sabbath comes along
    she’s beaming with happiness…

    Translated by Miri Koral

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  • Chaim Semiatitski (Khayim Semiatitsky)

    Two gals sitting on a mossy stone
    gab about God, grass, and the marvel of horseradish root
    which in winter hides with the worm deep in the ground
    until it detects the thunder’s sound.

    So one gal says:
    One night when I ventured out
    to draw from the river water and stars,
    I heard the rooster, dreaming, laughing out loud
    and the fish had the willow whistling them a tune.

    Says the other: – No way!
    And counts:
    Not – one
    Not – two
    Not – three
    Not – four
    to ensure that good angels cling to her,

    and says:
    I once went to gather sorrel in the field at dawn
    and saw the fly kiss the spider, its enemy sworn,
    and like good friends, they went merrily along.
    For children, who late at night, simply cry
    ‘cause by day their beauty was begrudged by an evil eye,
    their mothers recite:
    “Not – once,
    Not – twice,
    Pu-pu-pu, pu-pu-pu! —
    The evil eye is gone in a trice!”

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • Chaim Semiatitski (Khayim Semiatitsky)

    The linden shelters the twilight
    like a leaf among its branches,
    its flower enfolding the night in a bud
    till dawn
    when it unfurls like an almsgiver’s hand.
    In the drop of dew hanging suspended
    from the grass like an eye,
    the evening slumbers with the stars.
    And I cast a silver fishing rod
    into the river of dusk
    to capture my star laying on a water-floret;
    or, come the night, I rouse my father’s soul
    which had departed into it with a smile.

    Translated by Miri Koral

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  • Chaim Semiatitski (Khayim Semiatitsky)

    It’s this night and this book and this poem I read,
    while being birthed, this night had heard my first scream

    yet each day is again composed anew
    and I sit by the lanterns’ glow and peruse.

    Since such a wide world
    offers little respite,
    one walks the streets bowed
    with one’s shadow as escort.

    And a longing for the dawn
    rises up from cellar domiciles:
    this light is our sole possession,
    along with a roomful of hungry flies.

    And on bright illumined curtains
    the shadows of dancing dames glide,
    after carousing all night long –
    they scream at the day, which has already arrived.

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • Alter Kacyzne (Alter-Sholem Katsizne)

    The sun shone brightly in a festive way:
    today is the king of Chelm’s birthday.
    He observes from the terrace on high
    if the folk with the new gift are drawing nigh.
    Here they come, here they come, the shoes made of gold
    forged of real ducats, ready to behold!
    The folk crafted this golden footwear
    for the king in pride and joy to wear.
    Whosoever encounters the king in passing
    would clear the way as was certainly fitting.

    Town records reveal that in Chelm’s environ
    at the same time of year it rains more often.
    The streets of Chelm were sodden in clay —
    how deep the mud is! – one need not even say!
    And the feet of Chelm earnestly trod
    from shabes to shabes in relentless wet mud.
    Who’s creeping by, then quietly stumbles?
    The king in his golden shoes bumbles.

    So Chelm gathered its top ministers,
    its chief editors, its main senators,
    cantors, judges, even rabbis clustered —
    the greatest assembly Chelm had ever mustered.
    There was nothing further to declare:
    the king his golden shoes must wear!
    His people paid and worked for them dearly
    to see the king shod in gold so clearly!
    And then? One small thing is still outstanding:
    in the mud the gold is entirely missing.
    They must be nothing if not cautious:
    the king must wear a pair of galoshes.

    But in order for the gold to stand out
    each galosh must have its front torn out,
    so the gold is perceived from far and wide
    to fill the hearts of Chelm with joy and pride.

    But on those days of mud to the ankle
    the king forgoes the holes paradoxical:
    the king, and too, his wife esteemed,
    may stuff the holes with straw, it is deemed.

    And there we see the Chelm court uniform:
    two high galoshes with holes in the front,
    the holes stuffed with plugs of straw
    and this is how the king heads off.

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • Alter-Sholem Kacyzne (Katsizne) (1885-1941) was born in Vilnius (Vilno) to a working-class family. Yiddish was his mameloshen or mother-tongue, but he taught himself Hebrew, Russian, German, Polish, and French. At age 14, he went to work in his uncle’s photography studio in Dnipro (Ekatrinoslav). He became a professional photographer, and documented Jewish life in Poland, Palestine, and North Africa. Many of his striking photographs are available online.

    Kacyzne is well known for his photography, literary works and plays, but lesser so for his poetry. He founded his own Yiddish literary journals, and also contributed to the Yiddish Forward, and a number of periodicals with Communist leanings including Literarishe Tribune, Der Fraynd, and Literatur.

    He lived in Dnipro, and later Warsaw where he became a good friend of Y L Perets. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he fled to Lviv (Lemberg), and as the Nazi armies advanced, fled further east to Ternipol, where he was tortured to death by Ukranian collaborators in July 1941.

    Sources:

  • Hinde Nayman

    Little things snowy white,
    round as tiny stars
    and sweet as sweet can be,
    like saccharine pearls for tea.

    Dearer than a king’s crown,
    and honey cake brown,
    dry morsels of a loaf
    measured by the ounce.

    Playthings in a corner –
    making quite a mixture
    of a feather duster
    next to a rag doll.

    And like the pealing of a bell
    my mama’s words in me knell
    in a regretful refrain:
    Lazy bones, you hungry again?

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • Moyshe Shimel (Maurycy Szymel)

    Don’t cry little boy, wipe away your tears, it will soon be good.
    We will heal the wounds that drip with blood.

    We stand alone in this wide world against the sun that sets
    Alone, alone with our pain and our poverty

    We must find consolation for me and for you
    And repair the walls and fix the door ourselves

    Let them frighten us with knives, beat us and rob
    We will patch up our pillows and fix our windows

    Once and twice and three times we were fooled
    We have time and patience, we can wait

    Don’t cry little boy wipe away your tears and be still
    We’ll fix the table, the chairs and the floor

    We’ll restore the house that they have burned
    New walls will shine white in the light of the sun

    Don’t cry little boy, clear your eyes for new brighter days
    Spring will find us and come back this way

    Because they will be chopped down like old rotten trunks
    The hands of those who have killed your father and mother

    1937

    (more…)