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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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…)It may be a mistake
but my mama’s snow was simply white
and not like the poetic take:
green, lilac, or violet bright.
Between roads wildly overgrown,
contained by walls hunched from shame,
with hands tight-fisted as of stone
lives the miser of this place.
Sabbath after eating
her kugl luncheon,
Hanna-Rose is standing at
the mirror in the kitchen.
Combing out her locks,
buttoning up her blouse,
she bounces to the window,
audaciously looking out.
Two gals sitting on a mossy stone
gab about God, grass, and the marvel of horseradish root
which in winter hides with the worm deep in the ground
until it detects the thunder’s sound.