Wladislaw Szlengel (the ghetto poet): 1914-1943

The poems of W?adys?aw Szlengel were read in houses of the Ghetto and out of it, in the evenings and were passed on from hand to hand and passed from mouth to mouth. The poems were written in burning passion, while the events, which seemed to last for centuries occurred. They were living reflection of our feelings, thoughts, needs, pains and merciless fight for every moment of life. I recited in the Ghetto some of his poems in many meetings and small performances organized in order to collect some money for starving inhabitants of our houses, streets and for refugees expelled from their small towns, whose number was rising tragically every day. I was 12 years old by then. Halina Birenbaum

What I read to the dead (Szlengel’s poems)
Ce que j’ai lu aux morts (les poèmes de Szlengel)

…These poems-documents I was supposed to read to human beings who believed they will survive, I was supposed to review with them this volume as a diary of a dreadful period, which has passed to our joy, memories from the bottom of hell – but comrades to my wanderings disappeared and the poems became in one hour the poems which I read to the dead… W.S.

From The Manhattan Review:
Emanuel Ringelblum wrote an appreciative essay about Szlengel he included in his archive, Oneg Shabbat, that he later buried in the ground. Ringelblum wrote that Szlengel’s poems succeeded in moving the inhabitants of the ghetto “to tears. . .he spoke about what they lived, what they were most passionate about.” Ringelblum noted that Szlengel’s poems were popular, succeeding in communicating the spirit and atmosphere of the place. The poems were recited at many evening gatherings, and passed from hand to hand in versions copied by hand or typewriter. Several observers wrote that Szlengel’s poem “Counterattack” was one of the most popular poems among the ghetto’s inhabitants; it is an exhortation to take up arms, the point of view not only that of participant but leader.

Until Sunday on the BBC iPlayer
(Eva Hoffman is featured in my video piece, Say I’m a Jew)

“What I read to the dead.”

Writer Eva Hoffman explores the extraordinary verse and little known life of Wladislaw Szlengel, poet of the Warsaw Ghetto. Before the war and the Nazi invasion of Poland, he had written poetry in his native tongue and witty lyrics for popular tunes sung in the nightclubs of Warsaw. But confinement in the Warsaw Ghetto and its increasingly tragic circumstances changed Szlengel’s work into urgent bulletins for both fellow Jews, trapped inside the walls of their prison city, and his former Polish neighbours.

Szlengel wrote until his last days which came with the discovery of their hiding place in April 1943. Poems like The Little Station of Treblinka, What I Read to the Dead and Counterattack captured with ruthless immediacy the confused, terrifying, days and nights of Ghetto life until the beginnings of the doomed uprising in 1943 that finally brought total destruction.

The station is tiny,
Three firs grow in a line,
This is Treblinka station,
Says the ordinary sign.

There’s not even a cashier’s window,
A porter’s room? Do not seek it.
For a million you won’t get
A simple return ticket.

People read aloud Szlengel’s verses in their hiding places. In them they recognized not just their plight but their own humanity as family and friends continued to be deported. His poetry survived in versions committed to memory by a handful of survivors, in a small cache of poems kept safe and buried in a unique, secret archive and, decades later, in the form of a sheaf of pages found hidden inside a table marked for firewood.

I am looking through and sorting the poems that were written to those who are no more. Read it. This is our history.
This is what I read to the dead.

Reader Elliot Levey
Producer Mark Burman.

Kontratak Jan. 1943
Slysz niemiecki Boze,

                Jak modla/ sie/ Zydzi w dzikich domach,

                Trzymaja/c w re/ku zlom czy zerdz.

                Prosimy Cie/, Boze, o walke/ krwawa/.

                Blagamy Cie/ o gwaltowna/ smierc.

                Niech nasze oczy przed skonaniem

                Nie widza/ jak sie/ wloka/ szyny,

                Ale daj dloniom celnosc, Panie,

                Aby sie/ skrwawil mundur siny,

                Daj nam zobaczyc, zanim gardla

                Zawrze ostatni, gluchy je/k,

                W tych butnych dloniach, w lapach z pejczem

                Zwyczajny nasz czlowieczy le/k.

 --

Counterattack, Jan. 1943

Hear, O German God,

                The squatter-house Jews at prayers,

                Clutching a crowbar or a scrap of wood.

                We ask you, God, for a bloody battle,

                We beg you for a violent death.

                Spare us, before we die, the sight

                Of slow-receding rails,

                Give us, O Lord, a steady hand

                To stain their bluish tunics with blood,

                And let us see, before mute groan

                Chokes our throats,

                In their haughty hands, their whip-swinging paws

                Our common, human fright.