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 English translations of some of the remaining works of important Polish Yiddish poets who were murdered during the Holocaust. We’ll be publishing one new poem per week into 2027.


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  • Chaim Semiatitski (Khayim Semiatitsky)

    The yoke is upon you, city,
    forged to your stony shoulders,
    for you’re hitched to hundreds of cities,
    and a violent con, a flogger, holds the reins.

    (more…)

  • Chaim Semiatitski (Khayim Semiatitsky)

    1.

    On the downy snow-bed
    nights lie and serenely sleep,
    in stalls, cows doze,
    their eyes full of moon
    that slips into the stall
    through a thin slit,
    ruminating, ruminating,
    they ask, bellowing,
    what sort of world is this,
    what – Ha?
    Fish in the wavy, dark water
    rise quietly to the surface,
    swallow up a star
    and vanish back into the depths.

    (more…)

  • Chayim Semiatitski (Khayim Semiatitsky)

    At the tips of trees, days die,
    at the tips of trees, magnificent dawns arise –
    I am also a tree – and it will be the same for me.

    (more…)

  • Ber Horovits

    Like a sick bird
    returned to its former nest,
    Mother, I arrived from the wide world
    for your simple sustenance.

    (more…)

  • Shloyme (Shlomo) Burshteyn

    The bleak autumn wind keens,
    keeping the trees, naked and grey, from sleep.
    It has tangled in their branches,
    unable to escape.
    The trees, powerless to offer release,
    bestowed all their gold in a heap
    for the wind to doze off in their embrace.

    Translated by Miri Koral

    (more…)

  • Alter Kacyzne (Alter-Sholem Katsizne)

    From leaf to leaflet, from little straws and clay
    I made myself a pallet, built myself a home.
    Now wicked breezes blow – the frosts are on their way,
    now it’s wretchedness and woe —
    driven from our nest.

    (more…)

  • 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.

    (more…)

  • Shmuel Zaromb

    1

    On the red surface of the still waters
    of my melancholy,
    your submerged curly black head
    came swimming out.

    (more…)

  • 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:

  • Miryem (Miriam) Ulinover

    When to my little town I made my way
    for the very last stay
    you, my grandmama, showed me
    something quite assuredly…

    (more…)