The Song Remains
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.
The bleak autumn wind keens,
keeping the trees, naked and grey, from sleep.
It has tangled in their branches,
unable to escape.
The trees, powerless to offer release,
bestowed all their gold in a heap
for the wind to doze off in their embrace.
Translated by Miri Koral
(more…)From leaf to leaflet, from little straws and clay
I made myself a pallet, built myself a home.
Now wicked breezes blow – the frosts are on their way,
now it’s wretchedness and woe —
driven from our nest.
No home, no roof, at night nowhere to rest.
In this chill and snow, who will warm us now?
Who, oh, who will show us mercy now?
No home, no path, black nights, days desolate.
Our nest shattered and our wings bound
with no home, no path, oh, no home!
We roam and we wander
over sea and land
from one place to another
on roads unknown.
From all the dark corners, there blows a furious chill.
From all the grim corners, a ferocious world torments.
No home, no roof, at night nowhere to rest.
In this chill and snow, who will warm us now?
Who, oh, who will have mercy on us now?
No home, no path, black nights, days desolate.
Our little nest is shattered and our wings bound
with no home, no nest, and no home.
Translated by Miri Koral
(more…)1.
How light are my steps.
Tender winds waft on white wings,
flutter in the blue air,
binding, connecting the skies
to the sunny pavement.
1
On the red surface of the still waters
of my melancholy,
your submerged curly black head
came swimming out.
Shmuel Zaromb (1896-1941) was born with the name Moyshe-Tsvi Fayntsayg in Brok, Podlaskie Voivodeship. He was educated in a traditional cheder (Jewish primary school) and later studied at the Ostrow Yeshiva. He went into hiding in the First World War to avoid being drafted, moved to Łomża (Lomzhe), and adopted his new name.
He became well-versed in world literature, and started writing and publishing poetry.
In 1924 he moved to Warsaw and became active in the Labor Zionist movement. He began writing more prolifically, and “…made his way, as if unnoticed, into the front ranks of the great pléiade of poets, story-tellers and essayists who in those years transformed the capital of Poland into one of the most important cultural-creative centres in the Jewish world.”
At the beginning of the Second World War, Zaromb fled to Białystok along with many other Warsaw Jews, but was not permitted to stay, and ended up in Nieśwież.
He was murdered by the Nazis along with the other four thousand Jews of Nieśwież on 30 October 1941.
Sources:
When to my little town I made my way
for the very last stay
you, my grandmama, showed me
something quite assuredly…
Rokhl Kramf (1906-1988) was born in Krystynopol (Кристинопіль), later Chervonohrad (Червоноград), and now Sheptytskyi (Шептицький) Galicia, in modern Ukraine. She escaped to Israel in 1938, where she died in 1988.
She published poetry in many Yiddish language journals in Warsaw in the interwar period, and later in Israel.
Sources: