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.

  • Shmuel Zaromb

    1

    On the red surface of the still waters
    of my melancholy,
    your submerged curly black head
    came swimming out.

    From all directions, the trees extend their hands to you,
    draped with the heavy gold of my fruits:
    Come to me!

    Come to me, I will pull you out. From your wet body,
    weeping drops will fall back into the river
    of my gloom.

    Come to me! If your soul be a wind, from your breath
    will we string a fiddle.
    If your soul be a child, will we set you like a bird
    under the canopy of a green leaf among the branches.

    But you do not reply.
    The rings scatter on the mirror
    and spread your black hair on the water.
    I do not behold your face: it looks to the abyss,
    it looks to the abyss.

    2

    Summers go by in the sighs of their finale,
    silent autumns unfurl their dawns on the pathways, —
    And you sleep.
    Myrtles, grapes and aloe leaves,
    wild climbing plants circle around your sleeping head.
    But one time —
    you, in the blue shine of my love,
    opened your eyes.
    Among the night shrubs, on the dark lake
    of my sadness,
    the swan rustled past
    with the outstretched throat of my longing.
    And birds, like flying hieroglyphs,
    floated you my secret dreams above your head.
    O, welcome!

    3

    Just then you moved in the dark corner of my heart
    and sighed deeply.
    A wind winnowed through my window
    and the crystals resound around my extinguished lamps…
    I slink over to your corner
    and am begging you to stand up:
    your shut eyes have faded the misfortune on my face.
    In the brightness of day, see, I stand over you
    like a light melting above a lifeless head.

    O, get up!
    But you lie like a sealed blessing on my eyelashes and are mute.
    My dreams above you – the green leaves – sway.
    A breeze wailed upon the heart of a firtree,
    and you are sighing on the golden bed of my heart.

    4

    Merciless one!
    White days slide down and swim away with the black dews of the night.
    Hours – minutes
    that crumble into bits with the shattering of glass…
    and only in my one moment does the deep joy of your fecundity arise,
    millions of moments that fly to you and clamor convulsively
    for the treasure of your womb.
    One sole blink of an eye drinks up my rivers
    that mirror the seven heavens of my life;
    and then
    in the valley blooms the appletree
    whose shadow coolly fans me in my sleep
    with the marvels of my seventy years — —
    because in the blue glow of my dreams
    under your fastened eyelashes,
    to that which is my heart
    have I forever shut my eyes
    and only when your lips tremble
    do I awaken it,
    Wake up!

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • 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:

  • Miryem (Miriam) Ulinover

    When to my little town I made my way
    for the very last stay
    you, my grandmama, showed me
    something quite assuredly…

    You placed into a bundle,
    packed up, well-secured –
    ten needles, a scissor, a thimble,
    seven spools of thread.

    “My darling girl”, you softly say,
    while stroking my face,
    “Remember, as soon as holes appear,
    remove the dress and do repair!

    Let no one’s hand sew up on you
    the hole, darling child,
    your good sense is sewn up that way,
    and then gets stuck inside!

    You can wind up with a head, my dear,
    both heavy and dense –
    just when you’re off to get smart and clear,
    on the road to being apprenticed.”

    This is when I looked around,
    “Now, grandma, my dearest own,
    you can be totally calm about
    what my noggin relies upon.

    No hand, no thread will there be
    snagging any hole on me:
    To each his own, after all!
    It’s such a brouhaha!

    And sometimes it does dismay me,
    and my heart aches bitterly,
    that it’s no concern for nary a soul
    if I go about in tatters or whole.

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • Yakov Shudrikh

    The water in the well has become much clearer,
    the aged linden tree appears to be younger.
    I am restless, as solace keeps eluding me,
    not certain if I should be crying or singing.

    I knew you would arrive without windy seethings,
    but had no idea how long it might be taking.
    The heavens hereabouts have been angry with me,
    while the trees all around were singing mournfully.

    O, I open the windows, do come in, my guest,
    after such a wide-ranging journey, come and rest.
    And later you’ll go to the neighboring houses,
    asking after dear friends and old acquaintances.

    Brother, all of us here have so much to tell you,
    and likely we will not be forgotten so soon.
    Oh, this much yearning is a challenge to endure,
    as is putting up with so endless a winter.

    You have certainly heard from far away sources
    that luck is upon us in timing and purpose.
    Sounds from a different set of fiddles and flutes now,
    imparting faith and giving us more to hope for.

    So, what can I confide in you, my golden Spring,
    as so much for us has already been changing.
    You will soon recognize, you will soon be sensing
    that everyone here is gleaming and glittering.

    And I am now fated to become a singer
    for fortunate children, for delighted youngsters.
    Soon we’ll be out in the field with the pioneers
    chasing after butterflies and plucking flowers…

    1940

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • Rokhl Kramf (Rachel Krampf)

    Today I witnessed
    an old fella’s weeping;
    in a fold of his cheek
    a tear got stuck,
    unable to reach
    his white beard.

    Talk that had long
    prepared to
    reveal all to the world —
    also stayed stuck
    in his throat somewhere.

    The old fella
    slowly raised his hand
    that’s like a map
    of blue lines
    on a yellow cloth.
    His entire body
    began to tremble
    like the tear and like his hand.

    Today I witnessed
    an old fella’s weeping
    that arises from the heart
    and drops back
    into the heart once more.

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • 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:

  • Yakov Shudrikh

    You never brought me white roses
    yet the ground is white-bestrewn with them.
    The entire earth is redolent of spring blossoms,
    early spring blossoming on snow.

    Is it a surprise, then, when it’s so clearly winter
    that falling from the sky are drops of dew?
    And I walk around – a proud young buck
    swallowing the whiteness and the blue.

    I no longer hear my footsteps and the beating of my heart –
    I stride about on my own, all alone.
    The sun laughs from behind wispy clouds,
    and I fill up with light and glow.

    But my brightness becomes clouded
    when longing takes hold.
    Longing descends upon me like a fog
    on the pine trees in the woods.

    Should you come here to pluck winter roses,
    we would a true twosome be.
    I’d write you a poem in the snow,
    a poem of pure white glee…

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • Yakov Shudrikh

    Smoke, a white smoke, floats on the white hills,
    a whiteness that flies, scatters the snows.
    No one comes now to pluck white roses,
    so they fly into the air, whirl and twirl.

    On the white hills, birch trees rock,
    tremble and dance, laugh and howl.
    There’s no ground, no bounds,
    white clarity dazzles against a heavenly blue.

    The earth is white as a blank page,
    white rest and white stillness, white sorrow
    moves about longingly like a fable here,
    listening to the stillness like an open ear.

    Longing is just as white as is the snow,
    like the silver on the branches, like loneliness.
    But my longing wants to speak with someone
    with the white speech of the surrounds…

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • Yakov Shudrikh

    Like a young doe you ran off to the hills
    to gather the scattered gold of summer.
    Then tall grasses even wept at your feet,
    and hills gulped their fill of gloom.

    Like hungry kestrels winds flew in,
    gobbling up the last gold of summer.
    Small springs lost their blue color,
    creasing as much as the faces of oldsters.

    Your letters – heavy judgments, grey vapors,
    crazy winds that nip and gnaw at the branches,
    winds that tear the roof, wail in chimneys,
    and throw leaves at my pane – sick birds…

    Like a young doe you ran off to the hills
    to gather the scattered gold of summer.
    Now, like an invalid nearing death, I fear
    the sorrow with which you will come to me.

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • Yakov Shudrikh

    The golden tale, my child, has vanished,
    I heard it told by the fleeting wind.
    The golden tale has flown far off,
    it hovers with the golden sun above.
    So I’ll sing to you now, my child, listen well,
    another story of our great world I’ll tell:
    the tale of that world is a bloody one,
    a tale about peasants and white-robed noblemen.
    The nobles dwelt in dazzling palaces,
    the peasants to them being lackeys and serfs.
    The peasants drove plows over a great expanse,
    thus flourished grains and the sweetest produce.
    In autumn the heavens burst into tears
    and the nobles imbibed wines and liqueurs.
    And from the trees, leaves rotted and fell
    while their bared branches were all atremble.
    What befell that land, what occurred then?
    A great gathering in the courtyard grew —
    the peasants were hurting with nothing to chew
    while bellies swelled from out the nobles’ sheds!
    Like birds from the nest, hunger drove peasants
    from their huts in seeking sustenance…
    And on the way the wind snapped at their clothing –
    — Let’s put a stop to this! Onward! Let’s get going!
    But gendarmes discharged their lead bullets
    and blood congealed on the gardens and cobbles.

    And the tale, my child, keeps on spinning.
    But I won’t spin it now — it’s time for sleeping.
    Some day you’ll likely give it an apt conclusion
    when you’ve grasped it with its due comprehension.

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)