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.

  • Yakov Shudrikh

    Border guard, in the tenderness of night,
    when fiery stars fall from the sky
    and homesickness grips the heart—
    take care not to fall asleep.

    Border guard, when quiet rivers swell
    and gentle currents murmur their secrets,
    hold your weapon firmly and give the signal—
    make the mist-soft, silent night tremble.

    Border guard, the night has a thousand eyes,
    though it may seem blind and mute;
    the enemy may still try
    to cross into our land in disguise.

    Border guard, stay vigilant and aware
    when you sense a stranger’s breath come near;
    when night sends a shadow your way,
    let your eyes see as clearly as the stars.

    Border guard, the fields and kolkhozes* doze,
    dreaming of labor and growth,
    hearing tractors sing and cashboxes ring,
    seeing the earth blaze in dazzling, vivid hues.

    Border guard, you safeguard the fate
    of millions entrusted to your hands;
    at your signal, all will form ranks at the border,
    standing like a wall.

    Lvov, 1940

    *Russian: collective farms

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • Sh. Zhirman

    We march with abandoned joy
    into the newborn dawn.
    Happy holiday, Moscow!
    Bialystok sends its regards!

    And this way, bathed in happiness,
    clothed in a crimson glow,
    may our land rise up in a song
    of vital creation and purpose.
    Happy holiday, world!
    Happy holiday, world!

    October appears, mighty as the sun,
    embracing everything,
    embracing everyone.
    Hey, world—a Stalin greeting to you!
    On this joyful October day,
    Moscow sends its greetings!
    Bialystok sends its greetings!

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • Ber Horovits

    By now, I would be a father,
    bouncing a child on my sturdy knee,
    my nose nuzzled against its downy body,
    as to a full-blown, fragrant rose.

    My wife’s head would rest on my chest
    with the sweet certainty of a ship in harbor—
    and I would tenderly caress her head,
    silently, not uttering a word.

    Sitting quietly by the stove, my mother
    would darn a sock and miss a stitch;
    she’d fiddle with her glasses
    and lean toward the lantern’s light.

    Something strange would twist in my heart:
    “Oh, mamenyu, what is it? Come,
    sit here—right here beside me.”
    And I would kiss the tear from her cheek

    that my father had not lived to see.

    I cast off my misery,
    my rigid pride and my rationality,
    and return to you once more, a simple man—
    with a sincere, shy smile.

    I come to your sorrowful door
    on a dark night, carrying a lantern,
    and knock softly—
    You open it fearfully … I bow my head.

    And our guilty hands find each other,
    our lips tremble…
    Oh, sister, sister—we have spent too long
    embittering our lives, sister.

    And I offer a blessing over the bread
    and over the sweet milk –
    while our hearts beat out
    a quiet prayer of reconciliation …

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • Chaim Semiatitski (Khayim Semiatitsky)

    Mama, I no longer love winter
    or white snow as I once did,
    when the days seem to rise
    from the fields,
    because your weary legs
    could not walk beside me
    along the path
    across the snow
    lying so innocently bright
    at your threshold.

    You stood there a long while,
    watching
    for traces of my footsteps
    across the whiteness.

    Because of you,
    there are many things
    I love—and hate—
    today.
    For instance:
    I love
    the evening
    (it brings sleep to your eyelids);
    the road that leads you each morning
    to shul;
    the yellowed pages of your prayer book
    (that have absorbed the tears
    you shed for me);
    your old Sabbath dress;
    the woods;
    and even this gray life itself.
    And I am the enemy
    of a child’s cry
    in the middle of the night
    that startles you awake;
    the wind
    that drags clouds
    to your window;
    the milk that boils over on the stove
    and stirs your anger;
    and, at times, even myself—
    I am not who you hoped I would be.

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • Dovid Kenigsberg

    New times are coming – strange new times
    unlike any we have ever known,
    and wonders must before your eyes unfold
    that people will point to for a long time.

    The evening sky is ablaze throughout,
    and earthly fire is molten with sun,
    then whoever sees this needs to know:
    earth and heaven are not so far apart.

    Behold, the one who seized a world by plunder
    has softened now, gentle as a dove,
    and can’t trump up his future from stolen gains.
    And the dead return from beyond the grave.
    The good succumb to an ancient sin,
    and in the end, eternal justice wins.

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • (From the Book, “Volin Country Roads”)

    Kalman Lis

    Hey, you country roads, my country roads – lengthy, wide Volin roads,
    forever speaking to my heart, forever in my thoughts!

    Hey, you country roads, my country roads, fringed like tablecloths,
    a beauty impossible to paint with any brush.

    You are wreathed in smiles by day, doleful when night is here,
    tender as the milky ways, expansive as the atmosphere.

    Hey, you country roads, my country roads, stretching out in miles, in versts,
    from your vastness, your simplicity, for years did I nurse.

    Vastness splashes in my heart now, waves of simplicity in my lungs,
    who then, who will praise you, country roads, if not I, not now, when?

    Hey, I, Kalman, the Volintshik with these robust shoulders,
    rushing, rushing with passion, oblivious to reins and bridles.

    Hey, you country roads, my country roads – open roads, roads of vastness,
    forever will you come to mind, forever will you be imagined!

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • Simkhe Don

    Softly the clock sounds its mournful tick-tock,
    in the so still home with its ashen walls …
    The sadness is painful, the silence is laden,
    the hours drag slowly from one to the next…

    Outside, a cart rolls past with the autumn wind
    and the windowpanes rattle.
    Inside, half-darkness; in the shadowed stillness,
    one hears a child’s wail from next door.

    Beside a holy book, the father, weary, dozes,
    while, shivering, the mother patches a shirt.
    In the corner sits their daughter, unhappy and pale,
    writing to her brother, who lives far away:

    My brother! I long to keep hidden the truth,
    and comfort you with lies, for you have your own trials…
    Yet silence is hard and I can’t hold back the tears
    that I stifle through all the sleepless nights.

    Papa is not working; I’m ill and dispirited,
    and Mama is weary of bearing the want…
    Straining at the harness, we drag the wagon onward,
    yet still cannot bring it as far as—bread!

    And this is how it is next door, so too in every home:
    a cemetery has our shtetl become.
    The shops are empty, the factory sits idle,
    and the restive young have flown to the cities.

    Softly the clock sounds its mournful tick-tock,
    in the so still home with its ashen walls …
    The sadness is painful, the silence is laden
    the hours drag slowly from one to the next…

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • Simkhe Don (1904-1942) was likely born in Pułtusk, and published many poems in the period between the two world wars. Very little is known about his life, other than his published poems. He was murdered by the Nazis in either Warsaw or Majdenek.

    His name in the original collection of The Song Remains – דאָס ליד איז געבליבן is incorrectly cited as “Simkhe Dan”.

    Sources:

  • Borekh Olitzki (Baruch Olitzky)

    My gaze races after the clock’s hands,
    my ear quivers at the pulse of time,
    and though this clamorous Warsaw
    has swept me far away,
    so very far —
    still, porter, your bright shadow I remain.
    My blood carries the clear echoes of your steps;
    wherever I am,
    I am your radiant chord!

    The porches here blaze with lovely red hop leaves,
    the wind combs the lakes’ silvery braids.
    My little table is fragrant with sprats, dumplings, and torte,
    but I, across untold hundreds of kilometers,
    absorb your misery,
    your dark terror,
    and, mingled with the tears of unuttered speech,
    your hunger twitches at the corners of my mouth
    and in my grey beard…

    Even now, do I not walk Lithuania’s tranquil sands?
    Even now, don’t fir forests flare like green pyramids?
    A mere mirage? Yet from my very life
    your scent arises,
    and from these weary, weary shoulders of mine…

    It happens—the wretched peasant here begins knocking too,
    but does not know what to say:
    the Lithuanian peasant remains a simpleton, an ignoramus—
    spies an airplane – and sees a flying crucifix.

    And you—what, after all, are distance and remoteness?
    What do untold hundreds of kilometers matter
    when your silence cries out:
    “I want no more!
    I will no longer bear this yoke!
    I can bear it no longer!”
    Then I become pure listener,
    pure shaper,
    and from this darkened week I shape
    for you,
    for me,
    the brightest of all dawns!

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • Miryem (Miriam) Ulinover

    A summer morning. Five AM,
    and so the courtyard awakens.
    Things get humming, animated,
    off they run to feed the chickens.

    A boy trails after a girl
    up to the chicken coop fence –
    bestows a tender kiss,
    bestows a sweet caress.

    The girl remains in place,
    at a loss for how to respond…
    Blood rushes to her face
    while the startled red hen looks on…

    and absorbs the girl’s young blush
    into her own gimlet eye –
    then an errant “drop of blood”
    each of her yolks will “blight”!*

    *A fertilized egg showing blood in the yolk is considered unkosher.

    Translated by Miri Koral

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