Misha Troyanov
1.
How light are my steps.
Tender winds waft on white wings,
flutter in the blue air,
binding, connecting the skies
to the sunny pavement.
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.
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Lovesongs
Shmuel Zaromb
1
On the red surface of the still waters
(more…)
of my melancholy,
your submerged curly black head
came swimming out. -
About Shmuel Zaromb
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:
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A Little Letter to Grandma
When to my little town I made my way
(more…)
for the very last stay
you, my grandmama, showed me
something quite assuredly… -
About Rokhl Kramf (Rachel Krampf)
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:
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Alone
You never brought me white roses
(more…)
yet the ground is white-bestrewn with them.
The entire earth is redolent of spring blossoms,
early spring blossoming on snow. -
On the White Hills
Yakov Shudrikh
Smoke, a white smoke, floats on the white hills,
(more…)
a whiteness that flies, scatters the snows.
No one comes now to pluck white roses,
so they fly into the air, whirl and twirl. -
Like a Young Doe
Like a young doe you ran off to the hills
(more…)
to gather the scattered gold of summer.
Then tall grasses even wept at your feet,
and hills gulped their fill of gloom.