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.

  • Yisroel Shtern

    Though Springtime, there was rain and snow,
    and above the columns of night
    grief clambered like a cat and terrorized all the roads.
    I sat alone, leafing through an old holy book.

    Then a phrase transcending generations shimmered
    through my home like a crown, a proud phrase though old,
    but I did not move towards this dream
    with a silver platter, with bread and with salt.

    And the phrase did not flash like lightning during my sleep,
    and in the morning it did not sit by my head
    with daggers of judgment and punishment aimed at my eyes;
    it didn’t gnaw like sulfur permeating my days.

    I arose Spring-like with the day’s dance,
    wrote joy with my stick in the warm sand.
    Woe did not drip into my breakfast repast
    when a bloodied Jew came sliding along the wall

    Leaden and blind like a cloud, unable to locate his house;
    when laughter curls itself into the hairs of the brutes;
    when my street hightails it swiftly and small as a mouse.
    And in the park trees stand like hunters’ guns…

    Neither the morning nor the afternoon was ashamed.
    And the sun towered golden in town.
    And neither in the sun, nor in the tree, nor in me did burn
    the old-holy-book-phrase: “Man is formed from God”…

    Translated by Miri Koral

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  • Yisroel Shtern (1894-1942) was born in Ostrołęka (Ostrolenke), educated in yeshivas, and became a follower of the Mussar movement. After being imprisoned during the First World War, he lived in Warsaw, where he ultimately perished in the Ghetto in 1942. He published poems in many literary journals, and became known as one of the most important Yiddish poets in the period between the two world wars. Like so many others, his unpublished work was lost when the Ghetto was destroyed.

    Sources:

  • Chaim Semiatitski (Khayim Semiatitsky)

    On the street
    the trodden snow lies.
    Its countenance is pale
    and it cries.

    So I’ll invite the snow
    into my abode
    to be a guest of mine.

    Who’d dare tread
    with muddied boots
    upon a guest of mine?

    Translated by Miri Koral

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  • Yakov Shudrikh

    How everything here has changed, the color transformed.
    How lovely my city is, all spiffed up and adorned.
    The red flags flutter down nearly to the ground
    and for me every weekday is cause for celebration.

    So I walk around as in a dreamland,
    with a child’s glee with every stride and step.
    I’ve never seen so much light and radiance;
    it seems I’m becoming radiant myself.

    How everything here has changed, the color transformed.
    How close now, how cozy, how dear everything is.
    On these streets deadly danger was omnipresent,
    as were the heavy bootsteps of secret agents and police.

    Every worker here had lost his worth,
    felt an alien on this earth.
    And alien was your own language, your own word,
    forbidden to be sung or prompt a hearty laugh.

    How everything here has changed, the color transformed.
    With head held high, I’m dazzled, adorned.
    The young are singing, the elders winking too.
    The sky is looking down with such a peaceful blue.

    My city’s song wafts from every window,
    lauding Stalin and the Red Army.
    My heart sings along with them all joyfully,
    happy to have arrived at this moment in time!

    Lvov, 1939

    Translated by Miri Koral

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  • Moyshe Shimel (Maurycy Szymel)

    Here on the wooden bench
    is where we’ll wait for the sun to set.
    As we waited a thousand years past.
    It will certainly arrive. It has never fooled us yet.

    We’ve already covered so many miles…
    Now the evening washes over us in waves of golden dust –
    Now we can tell each other quietly,
    quietly and well
    about that for which we have waited
    and about that which will never be.

    The effort takes its toll.

    Offer me, dear one, your hand in evening-glow.
    Deliver me, forgive, and accept –

    because keeping one’s eyes open hurts.

    Translated by Miri Koral

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  • Yakov Shudrikh

    With the night my silky dreams dissolved.
    With the night my quiet singing stopped.
    With the day, my poem arrived swimming
    on the storm with a fierce echoing sound.

    With my eyes facing the tumult of generations,
    with my heartbeat in tune with my peers’ commotion,
    I go about on an earth red-hot from slaughter
    and mingle my poem with the mighty choir.

    Just yesterday I swallowed the gold of the stars,
    scarcely swaying with the soft stir of the leaves.
    I wanted to traverse my life with the ease
    of winging birds and the grace of deer.

    But my serene wish was torn asunder
    as I was enveloped by real happenings.
    Harsh menacing acts kept occurring
    and my dream intruded like a traitor.

    And the golden wonder melted from my poem
    because wonders themselves don’t weave a tale.
    The tale proceeds on crutches, with bandages,
    and the writer’s poem is born out of pain.

    With the night my silky dreams dissolved.
    With the night my quiet singing stopped.
    Harken to my shout, my loud symphony
    of a world coming with fresh sparkle and joy!

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • Yakov “Yankev” Shudrikh (1906-1943) was born in Uhniv (Hivniv / Urnav) in the Lviv (Lemberg) district, in modern Ukraine. He wrote poetry from a young age, and took part in the revolutionary movement. He co-founded the General Jewish Labor Party, and wrote for their organ Der Veg (The Way) as well as many other publications. People sang his poems at demonstrations and illegal literary evenings.

    He loved football and played professionally as well as in matches between writers and actors.

    During the war, he was confined to the Lviv ghetto. He was murdered by the Gestapo in June 1943.

    Sources:

  • Moyshe Shimel (Maurycy Szymel)

    My child, don’t be frightened
    of the wind
    that bends the trees to the earth,
    of the dark that pours over all the roads,
    of the rain
    that beats with heavy treads on the roof
    and of all, of all, that gives rise to the night,
    trembling in the wind –
    my child, don’t be frightened.
    Because the wind must bend trees to the earth;
    it’s propelled from behind
    by other winds,
    winds from mountain to woods
    compelled with anger, with violence.
    Over all the desolate fields, over all the gloomy roads
    that will ultimately reach their goal –
    as does everything that lives.
    And the rain, the rain
    must fall for the grass to grow –
    so, my child, don’t be frightened.
    For the coolness of the night
    that pours down from our roof,
    for the trees, for the rain
    and for all the paths
    that know where they lead,
    open the windows and the doors,
    let the wind come in,
    and the lightning and the fragrance of grasses
    and sing:
    Praise be the One
    that causes the winds to blow.

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • 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

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