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 (Dzhek) Gordon

    The sky today is a radiant
    pale blue
    and lamb-cloud white.
    The sun is smiling
    its last, sorrowful smile.

    (more…)

  • Misha Troyanov

    Above the Jewish street, a grey cloud hovers,
    spread like a dead horse across the sky.
    Friday is a day of hurry and yelling –
    Above the Jewish street, a grey cloud hovers,
    grey due to the sorrow
    that arises from the stinking gutters.
    A Jew with hungry eyes,
    his shoulders atremble at a shadowy gate,
    shouts and gesticulates:
    For sale! For sale — warm socks!
    And lads stand over baskets of rotten apples,
    women with bowed legs
    run around with garlic, with onions,
    their hands beseeching
    for the sake of a penny.
    From the butcher shops wafts the stench
    of entrails and spleens.
    A black funeral heads to the cemetery
    with clamor and screams.
    A Jew with swollen, decrepit boots
    splashes in the mud
    and huffs and schleps a heap of slaughtered fowl
    with twisted-together necks.
    Blind beggars stand near the gates,
    bang their canes and awaken
    the hard pavement.

    (more…)

  • Borekh Olitzki (Baruch Olitzky)

    My simple sisters,
    my shepherdesses and seamstresses
    with their blond braids
    call to me from the sidewalks of Łodz
    to make benches and straw roofs.
    Bunched up on bundles
    of the September amber
    and the sway of dahlias,
    they stretch their hands in supplication
    to the dusky profile of my name:
    who will play on bleeding panpipes
    the sadness of captivated flocks
    and the groans of hinges
    when bad folk take the gold
    of wheat and corn?

    (more…)

  • Miryem (Miriam) Ulinover

    Cocky on your walk in town, hail
    to me on your way.
    You stop, and startled, you exclaim:
    “This girl’s hair turned gray!”

    (more…)

  • Hersh Veber

    Cover up the headlight – as you would a mirror.
    Strangle its far-reaching sunny flash.
    This is my city, it smiles amicably
    and doesn’t notice it’s a stone cemetery.

    (more…)

  • Miryem (Miriam) Ulinover

    A golden day mid-week —
    and what else would maidens seek?
    “Mushroom gathering we will go!”
    Baskets rustle and pink cheeks glow.
    They sing of joy and how bright the sun,
    they gather together and do a count:
    the magnate’s woods is divvied up.
    There’s chatter and a meeting’s set
    a plot of land for each girl’s basket,
    a plot of forest-loneliness.
    They join up, split and disperse.
    A forest seemingly empty, still,
    yet pulsing with life and truly filled!

    (more…)

  • Y L Kohn

    Poverty could have totally defeated me
    (for being poor shrinks and dampens your soul)
    but for me the struggle to live hardened and armed me
    and I turned out of crooked darkness.

    (more…)

  • Hinde Nayman

    Between hills and above valleys stars
    glittered late into the night,
    and I arrived at a cottage that,
    like a shriveled mushroom,
    stood in the middle of the marketplace,
    its low threshold, a smooth stone,
    and its walls, enchanted and white.
    An eternal flame was lit inside,
    and a gilded bird had its wings outspread,
    and a flower grew in an earthen pot,
    its crown, like green velvet, stretched wide.
    But its soil had become parched,
    so with a pitcher in hand
    I watered the thirsty soil,
    and I watered the thirsty stem,
    and with the pitcher I sang
    a song of love and eternity.

    (more…)

  • Hershele (Hersh Danielewicz)

    Work, girlies, work!
    Work through day and night;
    sew up blouses, little frocks,
    then dress up to the nines!

    (more…)

  • Miryem (Miriam) Ulinover

    Time for me to get going…
    enough playing the fool:
    sitting around and hoping
    for a hot glance from you.

    (more…)