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.

  • Ber Horovits (1895-1942) was born in the rural village of Majdan, in the Carpathian Mountains of eastern Galicia. He received a traditional Jewish education at home, and also studied at a Ukrainian primary school, and graduated from the Polish gymnasium in Stanisławów.

    He fought for the imperial Austro-Hungarian army during the First World War, and later studied medicine in Vienna. He was associated with a group of Yiddish authors in Vienna including Avrom Moyshe Fuks, Melech Ravitch, and Moyshe Zilburg.

    He later moved to Kraków, where he translated and adapted plays for the Krakover Yidish Teater, and ultimately back to Stanisławów.

    According to Melech Ravitch, “Ber Horowitz is one of the powerful Jewish poets. He sings loudly. His poetry is noisy, even the quiet tenor of his lyrics is noisy … He uses a language that is semi-gentile, Judeo-Slavic pidgin Yiddish. He is a splendid representative and this alone has a bit of a stir for him: What am I?”

    He was also a gifted artist.

    He was murdered by the Nazis at the age of forty-seven. According to the oral testimony of three Jewish survivors, he died on Hoshana Rabbah, 1942, with 9,000 Jews in Stanislawów. According to another source, he was murdered by local peasants in his birthplace of Majdan.

    (more…)

  • Misha Troyanov

    Close your doors, lock all up
    mad dogs are howling in this dark city

    Mad dogs are howling in this dark city
    waking little children – making them cry
    Those who long have been saddened
    will even sadder be

    (more…)

  • Misha Troyanov, also known as Misza Trojanow (1906-1942) was a pen name used by Moyshe Troyanovski. He was born in Dąbrowa Górnicza near Będzin, and later lived in Łódź and Warsaw. He and had a religious education, and later worked as a tutor, business agent, and storehouse employee. His literary work first appeared in a number of Yiddish newspapers and journals based in Łódź and Warsaw. He was killed by the Nazis in Otwock on 19 August 1942.

    (more…)

  • Sholem Zhirman

    It’s a mighty symphony
    just one word – not more:
    Over human soul
    Be an Engineer.

    (more…)

  • Miryem Ulinover

    When from my little village I was parted
    My grandfather took me to the lake
    the spring sun warmed the blue sky
    He handed me a note when we said goodbye

    (more…)

  • Borekh Gelman

    My Boss owns a clock
    like all bosses do
    but this clock was made funny
    by the firm “Time is Money”

    (more…)
  • Borekh Gelman

    Borekh (Baruch) Gelman (1910-1941) was born in Widze (Vidzy) near Vilnius, now in Belarus. Gelman wrote for many publications including Di Naye Folks-tsaytung, Kleyne Folks-staytung, Yugnt-veker, Bokhnshrift, Foroys, Viner Tog, and Literarishe Bleter. He moved to Warsaw in 1936 and lived there until 1939. When the Nazis invaded Poland he escaped back to Widze, but was killed there with his five brothers and sisters in a pogrom in 1941.

    Sources:

  • Sholem Zhirman

    I owned a bunch of negative critiques
    in songs of battle courage and spite
    a nobody with hardly a worthy thought
    but today a wealth of treasured “capital”

    I recall in prison when I took the book into my hands
    and silently embraced the wealth of ideas
    a holy shiver trembled in me
    when opening Karl Marx’s “Das Kapital”

    (more…)

  • Sholem Zhirman (1909-1941) was born in Vilnius, and worked as a carpenter in his father’s workshop. He published his first poems in Warsaw’s Literarishe Tribune, and later published in a number of Yiddish newspapers and journals. He was jailed on several occasions for his activities in the revolutionary movement, and was later confined in the Bereza Kartuska concentration camp between 1933 and 1939, where he contracted tuberculosis and became deaf. He was murdered by the Gestapo with his wife in Paneriai (now in Lithuania) in late 1941.

    Source: Congress for Jewish Culture

  • Yakov (Dzhek) Gordon

    Great writer, our writer
    bright eyed so deep the shine
    On your mild and tender smile
    there is a shadowed quiet cry.

    (more…)