In memory of Dr. John Nowik z"l who has initiated this web site and who translated Szlengel's poems straight from his bleeding heart, but didn't live to see it on-line...
We thank Sebastian Angres, Edyta Gawron, Josef Holender and Jan Jagelski for their help in this project.
Halina Birenbaum & Ada Holtzman Israel, Spring 2003, 60 Years to the Ghetto Warszawa Uprising.
We Remember WLADYSLAW SZLENGEL, THE GHETTO POET!
...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...
Władysław Szlengel
Władysław
Szlengel
1914-Ghetto Warszawa 1943
The photo has the dedication of the
poet to a friend date: 11.9.1939
Biography
(The
Simon Wiesenthal Center, Courtesy of: "Encyclopedia of the Holocaust" (c)1990
Macmillan Publishing Company New York, NY 10022
Władysław Szlengel Mala Stacja Treblinki Na szlaku Tluszcz-Warszawa, I podroz trwa czasami A stacja jest malenka I nie ma nawet kasy Nie czeka nikt na stacji I milczy slup stacyjny, I tylko wisi z dawna |
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A Small Station Called Treblinka* By Wladyslaw Szlengel (1914-1943) Killed in Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 1943. Here is the small station of Treblinka * Translated from Polish to Hebrew by Halina Birenbaum and from Hebrew to English by Ada Holtzman. Yehuda Poliker, son of an Auschwitz Holocaust survivor from Thessaloniki wrote music to the poem and it is in his album: "Ashes and Dust". |
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Yankel Wiernik: A Year in Treblinka, New York 1945
Am I allowed to tell Szlengel? Am I allowed to tell Szlengel Endless ruins cover him Is it fair to postpone him And who will listen to the dead I have many comforts Am I allowed to be silent Halina Birenbaum 7.5.1985 |
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Wladyslaw Szlengel in the School of Commerce, Warsaw before 1930
(first row, first to the left)
Source: Jewish Historical
Institute ref 263/a,b
The first collection of Szlengel poems was published by Michal M. Borwicz: Piesn Ujdzie Calo, Antologia Wierszy o Zydach Pod Okupacja Niemiecka, Lodz 1947
A comprehensive collection of Szlengel's poetry was edited by Irena Maciejewska and was published in Warsaw Poland in 1977 "What I Read to the Dead":
Szlengel's book "What I read to the Dead" was translated
to Hebrew by Halina
Birenbaum and published by the translator in 1987.
Halina Birenbaum dedicated
the book "to all those with whom I read Szlengel poems at the threshold of the
total destruction of the Warszawa Ghetto"
Wladyslaw Szlengel Kronikarz Tonacych - Andrzej Kobos's web Site (Polish)
Władysław Szlengel Kartka z Dziennika Akcji Published in "Mosty" the Newspaper of "HaShomer Hatzair"
nr. 4(12), Published after the War | |
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A Page from the Diary of the Aktions
Translated by
Dr. John Nowik and edited by Ada Holtzman
T
oday I have seen Janusz Korczak,T
hey wore clean aprons of the holidaysT
he city had a frightened faceO
ccasionally a cry of a lost bird dementedS
ometimes footsteps, scraping and then a silenceA
nd here the children five by five, peacefully,T
here were no interventions on the UmschlagplatzJ
anusz Korczak walked with a straight headS
omeoneH
e did not even tried to explainS
o many years.... in this road so steep,A
nd then he thought about King Matthew,T
he children were went into the cattle trainsI
thought in this so ordinary momentT
hat in this Jewish cursed War,I
n the depth of corruption and betrayalD
o you hear neighbors from across the wall1) Szmerling: Commander of the Jewish Police in Ghetto
Warszawa
2) Lag Ba'omer - The thirty-three day of the counting of the Omer; a
festival
3) Hashomer - (Watchman) Jewish self-defense organization founded in
1905. Also name for a member of Hashomer Hatzair (Socialist & Zionist Youth
Movement).
The Word Which Never Gets Lost
T
he writer Amos Oz in his excellent television program said recently that the word never gets lost, even the one uttered in the desert... I think that what I know and remember about Wladyslaw Szlengel, one of the most popular poet in Warsaw Ghetto, only confirms this deep and extraordinary truth...T
he poems of Wladyslaw 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.L
ater, when from over half a million Jews in Warsaw Ghetto remained only 30-40 thousands, in January 1943, through workers in the Shop or "Placowki" (factories outside the Ghetto), we managed to get hold of two copies of Szlengel's poems. With profound and bitter emotions my 20-years old sister-in-law, Hela Grynsztejn ne'e Herszberg, read them for us. There were "Treblinka" and "Obrachunek z Bogiem" (An Account with God). In every moment Germans could rumble in their boots on our stairs and kick in our doors and transport us to Treblinka. We expected this to happen and it was our only reality in this world taken by Nazis's dreadfulness. How actual and meaningful sounded than these poet's words! I memorized their contents, atmosphere and "melody" (which was as well mine, ours), and the images of this room at 30 Nowolipie Street, in Schultz's block of flats - forever!P
robably these words soaked then into my blood with this terrible fear of undeserved death waiting everywhere and the whole unexpressed sufferings awaiting us!... They remained inside me forever and became a part of my identity. For the last time in the Ghetto I listened to Szlengel's poems with part of my family (father and most of my relatives were already taken to the Umschlagplatz in previous Actions (Akcja). The poems were recited with passion and inner satisfaction by my younger brother Chilek (20 years old). It was "The Contra-Attack". It was day before the outburst of the uprising in Ghetto, a few hours before going down to the bunker at 3 Mila Street... In the room of some deserted flat, except me, there were my mother Pola Perl Grynsztejn ne'e Kijewska, my sister-in-law Hela, my elder brother Marek and his few friends, last remnants of whole families. The boys were listening in tension and enthusiasm to the poem, throwing toys like they were machine guns up in the air. The atmosphere and the "melody" of this April's day was different - full of some maturity, hope in the hopelessness, terrible miserable joy of people who didn't have anything left except of their own wretched life, which as they knew, would be soon taken from them. They were still going to accomplish something. They were keen on that insane pressure of expectation and preparation for so many crucial and final tasks on this earth!I
remember it! I soaked it into my whole self! Those moments are inside me till now and probably they will stay until I die... I am not certain if I have enough words to express it; however, I feel it so clearly and sharply to the extent of pain. My brother was reading: "On the filthy stairs of Jewish Pawia street... an old mother was pulled by hair... the box is sticky by the blood..."Juno sind Rund"... The cigarette "Juno" is round... God before our dying let our eyes not see the rail continues on... Let us see in those insolent hands with fists and whips, our ordinary human's fear..."I
survived. Nearly alone. No one of them survived. But this is known. Later I was always telling about these poems from my "childhood", about their fascinating content, so tragic, so full of expression. After the war I was telling about them to my new friends, my students and my family. I was looking for those poems but for some reasons I haven't found any publication. I even thought that I am the only one who remembers Szlengel... And suddenly after 40 years, I came across a book: "What I Read To the Dead," written by Wladyslaw Szlengel. One woman left in her inheritance a collection of Holocaust books to the "Massua" institution in Kibbutz Tel Icchak. In "Massua" the intensive seminars have been taking place for many years, for high school teenagers from Israel and from abroad in the subject of the Shoah. I have taken part in it. One day, one of the headmasters of "Massua", Sanio, gave me a small book saying: "You probably will like it, read it"... I glanced on the cover and - I trembled: The poems of Szlengel!I
started checking, looking for "my" familiar poems. I found one after another like addresses of houses in which I was living, like dear people whom I haven't seen for years. There were there, all of them. Dizzy with emotions I started to read my familiar, dear words, engraved in my heart! Unintentionally I started reading it loud, straight in Hebrew in order to let people - who surrounded me and who were surprised by my emotions, to understand what made me so excited. I only haven't found "Obrachunek z Bogiem - An Account with God". But at the end of book, Irena Maciejewska, the editor of the collection, wrote that among the notes of the Ghetto historian Ringelblum, the poem "Obrachunek z Bogiem" is mentioned, but the original version didn't survived. Although she repeated some verses, which were similar but taken from the poem "There is a time now". They were not able to solve this problem. Reading these words,the blood hit into my head and my pulse stroke fast. I - ag- wassihalf-dead in the at Nowol30,for boots, while Hela, my sister-in-low, is reading "Obrachunek z Bogiem" "An Account With God", (exactly this first, unknown, "problematic" verse is in the book) and ends the poem more or less in this way: "We were oppressing our bodies... we followed Your commands... and what do You give us in return... the Block, the "Shopy", Treblinka?... You commanded us to fast, so we fasted, You commanded us to pray, so we prayed... and what else do You request from us? Do You want us to tell You Amen, while going to the Prussian gas...?"T
hese words were not found at that time, didn't get to the editor of the poet's collection of poems. I thought that the War burnt them totally. As well the poet, great in his persistence and faith in the life and in the written word, killed in a bunker during the uprising of the Ghetto Warszawa. All those people who listened to his creations, read and loved his poems were burnt, were choked by gas, were killed by guns. The odor of their burnt bodies and their last scream remained inside of me forever.I
am evidently, in this case that desert of Amos Oz. I am the ghost who carries on these words written by blood in dying, tortured Ghetto Warszawa. The poems still live inside me. I always remember these poems and always talk about them! In the Ghetto, I read from pieces of paper re-written carefully and enthusiastically, later from memory, from the deepest part of the soul - and now again from the pieces of paper in Hebrew. I translated the whole book: "What I read to the dead". I gave copies of the manuscripts to students, researchers, institutions and friends. I decided that the collection of priceless poems-documents would be published in Hebrew and would get to the readers in Israel. People who were reading these translated poems of Szlengel, "Sabres" among them, were very moved by their power and straightforwardness. They said, that this poems are like an injection straight into the vein...I
wanted Szlengel to live where I live, in Israel in a language, which I speak today. I hope that whoever reads these poems will feel what I have felt when reading those poems then, at the Ghetto, while the events took place, until its liquidation. Thus, I did my utmost to be faithful to the original texts and their spirit, written by a poet on the abyss. Szlengel defined his works as "poems - documents" and himself a poet who is writing the chronicle of his days and period on the walls of his grave. "I am a poet type the year 1943", Szlengel defined himself. Me, translator of his poems today, is probably the same desert where his word was absorbed, and survived. He and his "poems-documents" arrived with me to Eretz Israel after the Holocaust, and for that I thank my fate. Szlengel did not know about my existence and my love to his works. I was only a child and had no right to live' to be in the Ghetto which had already became a giant Forced Labor camp for slavery work' in which children, the week and the old were deported to instant death in Treblinka...T
oday, these poems are a constant reminder' that everything did happen' and hat all the Jewish people existed once and hoped to survive, or at least leave their traces in the eternity. They lightened the dark days, inspired strength and a feeling that not everything had died, and if there are still persons who wrote as they did and their light shone despite of the cycles of siege and hell in which they were locked in. We were encouraged by Szlengel poems and even disillusioned ourselves that who knows, may be there is a magic power standing behind us and would bring the victory soon, the end to our sufferings... We hoped for a miracle, without realizing that the writing in itself, transmitting the poems in the by the murderers' kept area, and the ability in itself of writing and reading concealed the miracle and the victory.A
few months ago I read an article in "Yediot Achronot" about: "Will any literature exist in year 2000?" and "Is there any future for the poetry?"... It reminded me of Szlengel, who was writing his terrible chronicle of the days of extermination and general destruction of all human rights and concepts. In his presence, thousands of people were dying every day and he wasn't asking if it is worthy, if any literature would exist after the extermination in Treblinka and after the torture of the road to that hell... The creation is created by life; it is as breath of air and mainly in times of great suffering. It is the substitute to all what is human, when the man is thrown to hell. And it was proven in the days of the Holocaust,S
ome part of his poetry he, Szlengel, hid in a double tabletop, which after nearly 20 years was found by a Pole in Jozefow (a small town near Warszawa) who was chopping this table probably for winter fuel... Well, poet's fortune and world's fortune - even in the most awful desert of death and total destruction the poems survived.S
o the word which never gets lost and works in so many different directions! My excitement from discovering the poetry of Szlengel in the collection "What I Read to the Dead", I described in Polish in the Israeli Polish newspaper "Nowiny Kurier". After one year I received a letter from Mr. Izydor Szulman from Haifa, in which he delivers me a manuscript of the poem "An Account with God"... He didn't even know who was the author... And thus I managed to publish the lost poem, on which I referred to before. It is true that the word never get lost!
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Wladislaw Szlengel; the Commercial School; the first to the
left. | |
Wladislaw Szlengel; the commercial School; first row, the
first to the right. |
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"Szyrim Lefnei Vemitoch Hamabul"
Poems Before and Within the Flood
Introduction by Halina Birenbaum
Wiersze sprzed i z czasu potopu
Z przedmowy do mojego hebrajskiego tomiku wierszy i tłumaczeń
Lata „potopu" w Shoah zostawiły we mnie niezliczone wspomnienia, ale nie tylko o okropnościach. Wyniosłam stamtąd ludzkie wartości, miłość do ludzi, do życia, i miłość do wierszy poznanych na krawędzi śmierci; do ich autorów, którzy przez swe utwory dawali nam otuchę i pomagali żyć - pomagali iść na śmierć z poczuciem wiecznej wartości życia. Pły z największej rozpaczy,ale też głębiludzkiego zrozumienia i wzniosłości, jakich doznaje się tylko w chwilach ostatecznych.
Takie były wiersze Icchaka Kacenelsona, Władysława Szlengla, Stefanii Ney (Grodzińskiej), Poli Braun i innych, nieznanych autorów. Staram się nieustannie przekazać ich treść i znaczenie swym bliskim oraz młodzieży, której opowiadam o tamtych czasach.
Wiersze te z mojego dzieciństwa lat Zagłady wracają do mnie niezwykłymi drogami, aż trudno uć, by mogło ę to dziać w rzeczywistości. Wracają chyba po to właśnie, bym moła przekć dalej wraz z moim wzruszeniem i tęsknotą do tych, z którymi je czytałam razem Wtedy.
Przedziwne przypadki sprowadzają też spotkania z towarzyszami losu z tamtych dni. Nazywam je „odkryciami archelogicznymi". Zwracają wspomnienia przebytych doświadczeń, uwiarygodniają zdarzenia zacierane przez c- i w tyicłównznaczenie.
Blumę Babic-Szadur i jej się z getta i obozów, Halinkę Czamarkę-Barman, spotkałam w Izraelu dopiero po 40 latach w szkole w Dniu Pamięci Holocaustu. Ukrywałyśmy się razem w bunkrze na ulicy Miłej 3 w czasie powstania i likwidacji getta warszawskiego. Szłyśmy potem dalej tą samą trasą: Majdanek, Auschwitz, Marsz Smierci - Ravensbruck - Neustadt-Glewe...
Przypomniałyśmy teraz razem tę całą przeszłość, także przedwojenne piosenki i wiersze z getta, które ja akurat tłumaczyłam wtedy na hebrajski. „Zaraziłam" do nich Blumę i Halinkę swym entuzjazmem, co przyniosło nieoczekiwanie do znalezienia utworów „sprzed potopu" Władysława Szlengla.
O przypadkach znalezienia innych jego wierszy zebranych w książce „Co czytałem umarłym", przetłumaczonej na hebrajski i opublikowanej przeze mnie w Tel Avivie napisałam szczegółowo w przedmowie do tej książki. I nagle odnalazły się jego następne wiersze.
Bluma i jej mąż odbyli długą podróż po świecie. Halinka, przybrana siostra Blumy, dołączyła się do nich. Odwiedzili, między innymi kuzyna Halinki w Brazylii.
Mosze Papelbaum, wyemigrował z Warszawy, miasta swego urodzenia, jeszcze przed II wojną światową. Ożenił się w Rio De Janeiro z tubylką, założyli rodzinę. Z czasem oddalił się niemal zupełnie od kultury, którą nasiąknął w domu w Polsce.
Spotkanie z Blumą i Halinką obudziło przeszłość z lat młodości, tęsknotę. Zaczęli przypominać także piosenki śpiewane przed wojną - polskie i żydowskie przeboje, popularną piosenką: Dziś panna Ańdzia ma wychodne, Jadziem Panie Zielonka!..."
Bluma zawołała w uniesieniu: „a wiesz, że te słowa napisał Władysław Szlengel, poeta warszawskiego getta, który zginął w czasie pw kwietniu 1943 roku?"
Papelbaum ujął głowę w ręce i zapłakał na dźwięk wypowiedzianego nazwiska. Szlengel był jego przyjacielem młodości, kolegą z ławy szkolnej jego brata, Ignaca, zgladzonego w Shoah.
Wyjął z szafy plik pożółkłych gazet i zdięć, dał je Blumie. Zdięcia swego brata ze Szlenglem w przedwojennej Warszawie, z letniska w Otwocku; gazety z lat 1937 - 1939 ( Nasz Przegląd, Szpilki), gdzie publikowano wiersze, satyry i humorestki Szlengla. Przechowywał je w ciągu dziesiątek lat, choć jego brazylijskiej rodzinie one były obce. Teraz te przedwojenne wiersze z pożółkłych, rozpadających się niemal gazet przemówiły nagle, jak proroctwo. Własne doświadczenia i czas dokazały tego na jakże bolesnych faktach!
Bluma przywiozła mi te gazety i zdięcia - skarb z Brazylii: powinnaś je przetłumaczyć, by nie zginęły, by te wiersze poznano w Izraelu! Nie musiała mi o tym napominać. Było to moim wewnętrznym poczuciem obowiązku, celem.
Część wierszy Szlengla odnalazło się w archiwum Emanuela Ringelbluma pod gruzami getta. Kilka wierszy znalazł pewien Polak z Józefowa, gdy rozrąbał stół przyniesiony z getta - niektóre wiersze ludzie odtworzyli z pamięci.
Tak też z wierszami Poli Braun i Stefanii Ney, które występowały razem ze Szlenglem w getcie w kawiarni „Sztuka". Steafania Ney i Pola Braun występowały również jako śpiewaczki i recytatorki w getcie warszawskim w teatrze Femina.
Pola Braun pisała teksty i komponowała muzykę do swych piosenek, śpiewała je też więźniarkom na konspiracyjnych spotkaniach w obozie na Majdanku. Polę Braun rozstrzelano wraz z 18.500 Zydami w środę, 3 listopada 1943 roku. Miała dwudzieściekilka lat.
Wiersze Szlengla, Ney i Braun opublikowano po wojnie w antologii „Pieśń ujdzie cało". Komitet żydowski zorganizowany jeszcze w czasie wojny, wydał tę antologię w roku 1947 pod redakcją pisarza i poety Michała Borwicza.
Kilka wierszy Szlengla w gazetach warszawskich sprzed wojny odnalazła w archiwum uniwersytetu w Jerozolimie i przekazała mi badaczka literatury z Tel Avivu, Ruth Szejnfeld. Mnie się udało odnaleźć zapamiętany z getta Obrachunek z Bogiem przez artykuł, który opublikowałam o tym wierszu w gazecie polskiej w Izraelu, Nowiny i Kurier.
Wiersze Płyną okręty i Szukam człowieka przyniosła mi Fira Slańska z Jerozolimy. Zdążyła przepisać je z gazety Nasz przegląd jeszcze w 1939 roku, na krótko przed swoim przyjazdem do Palestyny, przed wybuchem wojny. Fira skontaktowała się ze mną po przeczytaniu mojej książki Nadzieja umiera ostatnia, odtąd zaczęła się i trwa do dziś nasza przyjaźń.
Halina Migdan z Aschkelonu zwróciła się do mnie po przeczytaniu hebrajskiej wersji mojego tłumaczenia Co czytałem umarłym. Opowiedziała mi, że przed wydostaniem się na „aryjską" stronę na początku akcji wysyłki Zydów na stracenie do Treblinki pewien mężczyzna podał jej rękopisy pięciu wierszy, błagając, żeby je wzięła z sobą i przekazała światu, jeśli przeżyje.
Halina nie wiedziała nic o Szlenglu, ani kim był ten, który przekazał jej jego rękopisy. Przechowywała je przez całe życie wraz z najważniejszymi dokumentami.
Spotkanie z Haliną Migdan jest jednym z dowodów, że w getcie liczyły się nie mniej dzieła kultury od własnego życia - narażano życie dla ich ocalenia i przekazu..
Pisane w gettach i obozach wiersze były wyrazem życia i cierpień, największym pragnieniem pozostawienia ich śladów, zachowania człowieczeństwa w piekle - , pomagały tam żyć i umierać. One mogą nam opowiedzieć dziś wiernie, co myśleli i czuli ludzie w latach „potopu" w Shoah.
Historia Odnalezionego Wiersza
27.01.85
Gdybym była wierząca, musiałabym powiedzieć chyba, iż jest w tym ręka Boża. Jednak w cuda wierzę, chociaż sprawiają je lud, a raczej dobro istniejące w nich w głębiach duszy, dobro, które na różne sposoby zostaje pobudzane poprzez rozmaite ucznki, pozytywne działania.
Władysław Szlengel, niezmiernie popularny poeta warszawski, napisał jeden ze swych krążących po osierociałym getcie, czekającym wiosną 1943 roku na ostateczną zagładę, wiersz Obrachunek z Bogiem. Czytało się wtedy te wiersze, podawane w odpisach z rąk do rąk, z niewypowiedzianą, głodną zachłannością, jak wchłania się soki ożywcze, żeby nie skonać.Widziało się w samym ich istnieniu, w chęci możliwości tworzenia w takich chwilach - siłę życia i jego nie ocenioną wartość. Poprzez wiersze poety o tak aktualnej, trafnie określonej treści czuło się niezbicie, że potęga życia ludzkiego silniejsza jest od śmierci, Niemców, Hitlera!
Część utwrów Szlengla odnalazła się po wojnie pod gruzami getta warszawskiego wraz z archiwum historyka E. Ringelbluma i została opublikowana w Warszawie w tomiku Co czytałem umarłym.
W wyjaśnieniach na końcu tej książki podano, że w notatkach Ringenbluma jest mowa o wierszu „Obrachunek z Bogiem", ale go nie odnaleziono. Istnieje tylko pewna strofka, która treść taką przypomina, ale może to również być część innego utworu poety. Szlengel, jak wiadomo, zginął w bunkrze podczas powstania w getcie warszawskim i nawet wiek jego nie był dokładnie znany.
Po przeczytaniu Co czytałem umarłym napisałam i opublikowałam w „Nowinach Kurierze" artykuł: Słowo, które nie ginie nigdy, gdzie opisałam obszernie, w jakich okolicznościach zapoznałam się z wierszami Szlengla. W owej niewiadomej strofce natychmiast rozpoznałam „Obrachunek z Bogiem" i przytoczyłam kilka zdań utworu, które szczególnie wryły mi się w pamięć.
Kilku czytelników natychmiast po opublikowaniu tego zwróciło się do mnie. Nawiązałam z nimi kontakt, a potem i przyjaźń, gdyż okazało się, że wiele mze sobą wólnego,co nas serdecznie łęczy.
W zeszłym tygodniu, po upływie przeszło roku od tej publikacji otrzymałam list z Hajfy, od p. Izydora Szulmana, który doniósł mi, że po przeczytaniu mego artykułu w „Nowiny" przypomniał sobie, iż zazaz po wojnie znajomy wręczył mu otrzymany od kogoś z Warszawy odpis ręczny: Obrachunek z Bogiem. Dopiero teraz udało mu się wygrzebać go w swych papierach i jeśli jestem jeszcze, zainteresowana, chętnie mi prześle kopię...
Pan Szulman jest także warszawianinem, przeżył wojnę wraz żoną i córką w Rosji. Oczywiście, ście natychmizatelefonowałam. Otrzymałam z jego rąk calutki wiersz! Miałam niespełna trzynaście lat, gdy w domu na Nowolipiu 30, w bloku Szulca przeczytano mi go po raz pierwszy, na krótko przed rozpoczęciem powstania w getcie. Przeżyłam, zapamiętałam tak nam wtedy bliskie treści. Jestem wdzięczna losowi za możliwość wzięcia udziału w wydaniu na światło, w czterdzieści dwa lata po jego napisaniu. Jednak w cuda wierzę.
A więc istnieją cuda i dobrzy ludzie, dzięki którym dotarło jeszcze jedno Wołanie w nocy Władysława Szlengla.
A może Bóg zawstydził się i nie chcąc pozostawić „karty" poety - czystej, pomógł w tym odnalezieniu, aby na czystej karcie obrachunku dopiasano jakiś czyn...
Z odnalezionego obecnie wiersza dowiadujemy się, że poeta w chśmmiał 32 lata.
Wołanie w nocy Wiersze lipiec - wrzesień 1942Wiersze te, napisane między jednym A drugim Wstrząsem, w
dniach konania Wołanie... w nocy... |
A Cry in the Night Poems Written Between July and September 1942 Translated by John Nowik and Ada Holtzman These poems were written between the first My cry... in the night... |
Wladyslaw Szlengel - The Ghetto Poet, Alive, Dying,
Fighting
W
ladyslaw Szlengel was born at Warszawa in 1914. His father - a painter who made a living from painting boards and announcements for the cinema. He sent his son to school of Commerce but Wladyslaw, who helped his father in his work' discovered already in school his talent for rhyming and he found, very quickly, a way to reach newspapers and weeklies, and another path he took was his access to theaters and "Review Theaters.A
t the same time Szlengel published poems and satirical prose in the satirical newspaper "Szpilki", "Pins", but also in the Jewish newspaper "Nasz Przegląd" ("Our Review") he published gloomy prophetic poems which foreboded the approaching storm - the Hitlerian danger which threats the whole human kind. Also these poems tended to a publicist style - and they clearly send their message, without metaphors or literary ornaments, see his pessimist poems like "Don't Buy the New Year Calendar" or "A Frightened Generation".T
he separation from the Polish environment was very painful to Szlengel. We learn about it from his poems full of nostalgia to Warszawa. In one of them, "The Telephone", he tells how while sitting near the telephone, he wanted to speak to one of his Polish friends behind the wall of the Ghetto. To his amazement, he found out that he has nobody to call, as their ways were completely separated during the Ghetto times. This poem was probably among the first ones he wrote after the erection of the Ghetto.T
he next poems are rather a chronicle of the Ghetto life and its future. His poetry was written to the literary crowd, which had gathered in "Sztuka" (art) coffee-shop on Leszno Street. There Szlengel gave a show on the stage, together with other satirical writers, such as Leonid Fukszanski, "Mecenas Wacus (Waclaw Tajtelbaum), Andrzej Wlast - very well known names before the War - and also Pola Braun, the singers Wera Gran and Marysia Ajzenstadt, the piansit Wladyslaw Szpilman and others.T
he poems were not written only to the actual crowd of the "living diary", or lovers of his poetry, recited in many parties and special evenings in private homes, Szlengel was aware of the fact that he was writing for history and also to the future reader. For this reason he assembled his poems in files which he distributed in various hiding place in the Ghetto and outside the Ghetto.T
o mark the 35th anniversary of Ghetto Warszawa's uprising, Irena Maciejewska published all the poems, which she managed to find - except one: "The key is at the Concierge". This is an ironic poem, aimed at all those who were the first to take the opportunity given to them by the Germans, to rob the Jewish property and also the first to serve the new Masters. This poem was not included in the collection published in Warszawa, but we learn that Szlengel himself refrained from including it in his collection. And thus he wrote to the "pedants" who would come one day and publish his poetry: "I didn't include my poem "The key at the Concierge" because I wait with publication of this drastic subject (the title should not be taken as simple as it sounds) to days when the nationalist instincts which were inflamed by the brown shirts will fade, and with peace we will make the account with the sins of our neighbors." The poem was published in the anthology of Michal Borwicz ("Piesn ujdzie calo" - The song will all sourvive, 1947) and also in the anthology of the satirical Polish poetry of Leon Pasternak and Jan Spiwak (1950).S
zlengel does not explicitly to these subjects. There is no exact key to the chronology of Szlengel's poems. But we can assume according to the contents of the poem, when they were written. So is the poem "Things", which is a rather living history of the deportations and decreasing the Ghetto's space, or "A Page from the Diary of the Aktions" which describes the heroic expel of Janusz Korczak and his orphan children to the Umschlagplatz - a rare document of an eye-witness - and "Contratak", (Counterattack) a giant testimony page to the Jewish armed uprising on 19 April 1943.W
ladyslaw Szlengel lived all the Ghetto period and he perished during the Warszawa Ghetto uprising in April, in the bunker of Szymon Kac on 36 Swietojenska Street, and with his sharp brilliant pen, he brought into expression the tragedy which occurred there. He didn't refrain from attacking the masters from the Jewish Police, by writing names and incidents.S
zlengel erected a memorial to the simple man and he left a very unique description of the Jewish revolt. He writes under all circumstances and see himself as the diarist in a sinking ship, the poet of the dying and the murdered. His opening lines to the collection of his poems - "What I Read to the Dead" is so shocking and explain the situation of the Ghetto's prisoners,in such truthfulness that compared to it, thousand of papers written about the subject since then become pale.Names...
Ziuta... Asia... Eli... Fanja... Siuma... Do they tell you anything? Nothing.
People... unnecessary people. They were thousands of them. In thousands they were driven to the Umschlagplatz, in thousands they were bitten by the whip, torn apart from their families, loaded into the cargo trucks, poisoned by gas. Not importa. The Statistics will not mark , they will rno commen.
Names. Empty sounds. For me they were living people, relatives, tangible, these are human lives whom I have known from events in which I participated. These tragedies intensified by feelings are more important for me than the fate of Europe.
They are gone...
They are gone...
Władysław Szlengel
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Władysław Szlengel: Selected Poems
(Spis treści - partial list)
Szałasy (Nasz Przeglad -
(Our Review) 20.09.1937) - Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacle)
Wiosna na ulicy Pawiej
(18.04. 1937) - Spring on the Pawia Street
Wiersz na temat
nieżydowski , ("Nasz Przeglad", 5.10. 1937) - A Poem not about a Jewish
Theme
Samolot (6.04.1937) - An
Aeroplane
Sklepiki (18.12.1938) -
Small Shops
Płyną okręty (Quasi
una Fantasia) 1938 - Ships are Sailing (almost a Fantasy)
Szukam cłowieka
(1938) - I'm looking for a Human Being
Przerażone pokolenie
(25.01. 1939) - Frightened Genaration
Prima Aprilis (1939) -
"Nasz Przeglad" (Our Review) - 1st April
Malzenstwo Dyktatora,
Szpilki (1939) - Pins, The Marriage of the Dictator (a
Feuilleton)
Cisza (Akwarela letnia)
(13.08.1939) - Silence (Summer Aquarelle)
Tobuł tułaczy 5.02.1939
- A Bundle of a Vagabond
The Warsaw Ghetto Poems ( From the Book of Irena Maciejewska
)Co Czytalem Umarlym- What I read to Dead
Co czytałem umarłym - What I read to Dead
Posłowie - Afterwords
Notatka dla pedantów - A Note to the
Pedants
Do polskiego czytelnika - To the Polish Reader
Wołanie w nocy - A Cry
in the Night
Okno na tamtą stronę - The Window to the Other Side
Telefon - The Telephone
Legendy wigilijne - Legends of the Eve of
Christmas
1. Jezus w zakładach Kruppa - Jesus in Krupps Establishments |
2 .Cud w okopach - A Miracle on the Ramp |
Dwaj panowie na śniegu - Two Men on the Snow
Paszporty - The Passports
Alarm
Klucz u Stróża - The Key is at the
Concierge
Mała stacja
Treblinki - The Small Station of Treblinka
Obrachunek z
Bogiem - An Account with God, Warsaw Ghetto 1943
Kartka z dziennika
akcji - A Page from the Diary of the Aktions
Okolice Warszawy - Warsaw Surroundings
Pomnik - The
Monument
Dzwonki - Bells
Rozmowa z dzieckiem - Talking with a Child
Nowe święto - A New Holiday
Ostatnia legenda o Golemie - The Last Legend about the "Golem"
of Prague
Cylinder - A Cylinder (Top cap)
Wiersz o dziesięciu kieliszkach - A Poem about Ten "Chalices"
(Wine Glasses)
Cyrk - A Cyrcus
Zahlen bitte! - You Have to Pay Please!
Dwie śmierci - Two Deaths
W
ten dzień - At this Day
Piękna niedziela - The Beautiful Sunday
Romans współczesny - A Contemporary
Romance
Erotyk anno domini 1943 - An Eroticist Year 1943
Dajcie mi spokój - Leave Me in
Peace
Bardzo przepraszam - I Beg Your Pardon
Rzeczy - Things
Już czas - It's Time Already
Za pięć dwuna- Five minutes to Midnight
Kowersja I - Counterattack (Version I)
Kontratak werska II - Counterattack (Version
II)
Varia - Various
Resume, czyli Krakowiaki makabryczne - Resume of the Macabre
Krakoviacs
Pamiętają o mnie (Piosenka Majera Mlinczyka) - They Remember
Me (A song by Majer Mlinczyk)
Fraszki - Trifles
1. szczotki między sobą - The Brushes Among Themselves |
2 . Czekoladowe życie - Life Made of Chocolate |
Trzy listy o wąsach i bródce - Three
Letters about a Moustache and a Little Bird
1. Do Charlie Chaplina - To Charlie Chaplin |
2 . Do obwodowego Szmerlinga - To the Square Commander Schmerling |
3. Do mecenasa Wacusia - To the Lawyer Vacuś |
Pożegnanie z czapką - Parting from a Cap
Shalom Wladyslaw Szlengel, The Ghetto Poet, We Remember!
This web page was last updated May 6th, 2003 (update nr. 3)