World War 2 poetry

Thank you for the post- Is this from 'The Pit Poem'? Will start looking for English translations of his work . Regards

 

Indeed it is. I'm very glad that someone recognized it.
I was looking for the full English translation but couldn't find any. Unfortunately it loses a lot of meaning and power after it is translated to English and I suppose any other language as well.

 

To do justice to a poem in translation requires not only skill as a translator but skill as a poet. I think those set to music have often had better translations than those that haven't been. Perhaps because if it's a song the focus is on capturing the "feel" and "sprit" of the piece rather than producing a literal translation.

 

This was written by the immensely popular in the pre-war Poland poet Władysław Szlengel.
It was written shorty after 250,000 Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto were sent to gas chambers of Treblinka.
He was executed four months later.

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.



On the Tluszcz-Warsaw line,
from the Warsaw-East station,
you leave by rail
and ride straight on …
The journey lasts, sometimes
five hours & 45 minutes,
but sometimes it lasts
a lifetime until death.
The station is tiny.
Three fir trees grow there.
The sign is ordinary:
it’s the Treblinka station.
No cashier’s window,
No porter in view,
No return tickets,
Not even for a million.
There, no one is waiting,
no one waves a kerchief,
and only silence hovers,
deaf emptiness greets you.
Silent the flagpole,
silent the fir trees,
silent the black sign:
it’s the Treblinka station.
Only an old poster
with fading letters
advises:
“Cook with gas.”

 

The full text of 'The Pit' in English is at

https://allpoetry.com/The-Pit

It's one of most harrowing and gruesome poems that I've read. Can you tell us anything about the background ? I presume that the poem is about the Croatian Ustasha who were allied to the Nazis ? ( I've seen different spellings 'Ustashi' for example)
Regards
Michael

 

Indeed, I was thinking about trying to translate a poem from Dutch into English for my blog but could backfire badly!
It's probably better that someone who understands the dynamics of poetry-or better still a poet- translates from their first language .
Yet want to encourage people to look at World War 2 poetry in different languages.

With regard to music, I was thinking about 'Babi Yar' , the poem by Yevgeni Yevtushenko that Shostakovich set to music to open his 13th Symphony .
I think that the 'spirit' of the poem comes over well to people like myself who can't understand any Russian whatsoever.

 

Thank you for posting . An incredible poem for Holocaust Memorial Day. Will be seeking out more of his work.

 

It is indeed about the atrocities of the Ustashas. Croatian spelling for the member of the movement is 'Ustaša' (Ustasha) and the plural is 'Ustaše' (Ustashas).
Thanks for the whole English translation.

 

One of the first allied soldiers buried on Omaha Beach was a poet. Augustus March Phillips's poem "If I should die " is engraved on a slab over his grave in St Laurent Cemetery.

There are quite a few poems from the Italian Campaign

And a short verse popular with Indian troops

Oh bury me at Cassino
My duty to England is done
And when you get back to Blighty
And you are drinking your whisky and rum
Remember the old Indian soldier
When the war he fought has been won!

 

Thanks for your post Sheldrake. Can't trace Augustus March Phillips's poem at all. The main problem is that "If I should die..." in a search engine calls up Rupert Brooke. Would welcome a link .

Found this poem from US veteran Peter A, Thomas 'Omaha Beach' though.

http://www.wwiimemorialfriends.org/omaha-beach-by-peter-thomas

And here is a link to Peter Thomas reading the poem with orchestral backing

http://www.wwiimemorialfriends.org/images/70thDDay/Peter_Thomas-Omaha_Beach.mp3


OMAHA BEACH
[SIZE=10pt]By Peter A. Thomas[/SIZE]
When we went in, the beach had been taken
The living fought on, the dead forsaken
We were dropped into water up to our shoulders
We waded in – a group of green soldiers
Onto that thin strip of beach
So many had tried to reach.
They were the ones who went in first
Among the machine gun fire and shell burst
They went to watery graves
Sinking under the waves
The water was red
Red from the dead
Red from the dying
In agony crying
Those who made the land
Were not able to stand
They fell on the sand
Writhing in pain
Screaming for help in vain.
Every advantage was on the hill
They murdered our men at will
The rain of death from the cliffs never stopped
But we just kept coming in from the sea
Wave after wave, as far as you could see
Sheer courage and determination
Not believing they were done
Dictated the victory that day.
Others in the future will say
When they stand on that mighty height
And look down on that thin strip of beach
They’ll say, “I don’t see how they ever did it.”
They fought for every inch of it
Up the sides of that fortified wall
Over the tops of those cliffs so tall.
I’ll never forget that beach
I’ll never forget the men
In the ships
In the air and on the land
And those who died on the sand
And in the water.
They lie now beneath thousands of white crosses
And Stars of David
Above the beach
Those wonderful soldiers who died so young
They died so we
Could be free
How can we ever forget what they did
We honor them this day
We salute them
And we humbly beseech
Dear God, bless the men who died on
Omaha Beach.

 

This one is just a computer like literal translation. I don't believe anything better exists, which is a shame.
It was written in 1943 by a Jewish woman hiding in the occupied Warsaw, shortly after news of the firebombing of Hamburg reached Poland - making a great impression on everybody.
She later fought in the Warsaw Uprising, and then became a known theater director.
She was a member of various anti-communist groups, including the Solidarity Movement.

It was well known in Poland at that time, in the same year it reached Poles living in Germany so the Polish underground publishing network must have been really efficient.

For the land destroyed
For the weeping and bleeding Vistula
For the Tatras, for the Baltic defiled
For the deadly September in Warsaw

For the tomb, giving hope
in days of death and despair
Deliver, O Lord, women and children
From the burning fires of Hamburg

For the crosses insulted in chapels
For the trampled cemetery ashes
Keep safe in enemy cities
their soaring gothic churches.

O Lord, by your sign on the towers
Through the cross of your passion and glory
We ask you whispering prayers
We beg you thundering chants

In the triumph over the defeat
when your anger will show
Give strength, give the joy of victory
and destroy the hate in our souls

In the mass of lightning, pounding
their last bastions and trenches
Give people, saved from the ruins
Your holy forever Testament.

 

Thank you wm. Great poem. Is the title and author known?

Recently been introduced to the work of Professor John Guzlowski. This is poem 'Refugees ' from his book 'Echoes of Tattered Tongues' .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHjMDado9t8

Both his parents were Polish citizens who were placed in concentration camps as forced labourers for the Third Reich, and John Guzlowski was born in a Displaced Persons camp . A great deal of John Guzlowski's work concerns his parents' experiences . The family emigrated to the USA in 1951.

His Amazon page is here

https://www.amazon.com/John-Z.-Guzlowski/e/B00287TCBG

 

Just listening to this radio documentary on You Tube
"Return to Oasis - World War 2 - Soldier Poets of the Western Desert - Radio - Documentary - 2012 "

Originally broadcast on 2nd November 2012
" Mike Greenwood returns to the western desert as veterans gather in El Alamein to mark the 70th anniversary of the campaign. He talks to military historian Julian Thompson and veterans to evoke a world at war in the western desert, discusses the Oasis anthology with Owen Sheers and professor literature Antony Rowland.-and we hear the poems in reading and archives. "

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLXefvOZz6c

 

It is "Prayer" by Leonia Jabłonkówna:


She isn't known internationally. As a theatre critic, director, and writer in communist Poland she didn't have much chance for that.
John Guzlowski's poetry is interesting, and easily to understand but unfortunately too cerebral for me. As an ignorant I prefer poems like "Prayer", highly emotional - like a sledgehammer pounding an anvil.

 

This one is more mainstream, one of the best-known Polish military songs, written in 1944 by a poet Feliks Konarski, and a Polish Jew Alfred Schütz.
Schütz later worked for the Polish Section of Radio Free Europe in Monachium (as many other famous Polish writers and poets). For this the song for forbidden in communist Poland.
Unfortunately he died in Monachium too, with no identifiable heirs, so his property was escheated. As result, for many years Germany was collecting licensing fees for an anti-German song written by two rabid Polish "chauvinists".

Red Poppies on Monte Cassino

Do you see that rabble on the peak?
There, your foe is hiding like a rat
You have to, you have to, you have to
Grab his neck and from the clouds, knock him down
And they went ferocious and mad
And they went to kill and to avenge
And they went like always unyielding
Like always, for honor, fight

Red poppies on Monte Cassino
Instead of dew, were drinking Polish blood
Through these poppies walked soldier and died
But stronger than death was his wrath
Years go by and centuries will pass
The traces of old days will last
And all the poppies on Monte Cassino
Will be redder because from Polish blood they'll grow

They charged through fire, expendable
Not just one, took a bullet and died
Like those madman of Samosierra
Like those, years before, at Racławice
They charged with force of madmen
And they made it. The assault was successfull
And their white and red banner
Was raised on the rubble among the clouds

Red Poppies...

Do you see this row of white crosses?
There Pole with honor, took oath.
Walk forward, the farther, the higher
The more of them you'll find at your feet
This earth belongs to Poland
Although, Poland is far away from here
Because freedom, by crosses, is measured
This is history's, one mistake

Red poppies...

 

Not to be too militaristic, this one is an anti-war poem written after the Great War by the most popular Polish poet (actually a Polish Jew) today - Julian Tuwim, with an obligatory street named after him in every town/city. He was very popular before the war too, especially among young women and girls.
Mabye far left protesters in the US would find some use for it

The Common Man
alternative translations: 1, 2.

When every wall is hid by many
new posters freshly pasted up,
when ‘to the people’, ‘to the Army’,
in black print stare appeals alarming,
and any dolt, and any pup
will take for gospel each old lie
that one should go and shoot off guns
and murder, poison, rob, at once;
start drumming into all our noggins
the ‘Fatherland’; the mob incite,
bamboozle with bright-coloured slogans,
egg on with ‘Our historic right’,
‘every inch’, ‘glory’, ‘sacred borders’,
with ‘our forebears’, ‘pay the price’,
with ‘heroes’, ‘flag’ and ‘sacrifice’;
when bishop, pastor, rabbi come
to say a blessing on each gun,
for God has told them, that His will
is that for Country – you should kill;
when gutter tabloid screams and rages
in letters huge on its front pages,
and herds of females lose their voice
throwing bouquets at ‘our brave boys’,
– O, my untutored simple friend,
mate from this land, or other land!
Know that the bells for these alarums
kings strike, with girls with ample charms,
Know it’s all hogwash, lies perverted,
And when these call out: ‘Shoulder arms!’
That somewhere from the ground oil spurted,
With dollars soiling the bright colours;
That in their banks there’s something rotten,
They smelled some moneybags, it looks,
Or cooked some scheme, the oily crooks,
For higher import tax for cotton.
Drum on the pavement with your gun!
Ours the blood, the oil is theirs!
And through each capital and town
Scream out, to guard your cash blood-won:
‘Tell us another, noble sirs!’.

 

Thank you for clarification wm re. "Prayer".

In respect of John Guzlowski , his poetry is attempting to depict the harrowing experiences of his parents as Poles, facing the German invasion, then taken to (German) concentration camps as forced labourers. Then becoming Displaced Persons, then emigrating to the USA. John Guzlowski was both in a DP camp shortly after the War.
I have a very broad view of who should write war poetry , but I know in certain circles-especially those around the World War one 'War Poets', 'second generation' war poetry is not always favoured.

 

Thinking about it, the question of second generation war poetry is not an easy one.
But I suppose he as a kid heard the stories so many times over and over again, he himself has become a "virtual" first generation war poet.

I requested translation of that poem on lyricstranslate.com and this is the result, still a literal not poetic translation but I suppose better than nothing...

The Prayer
For the homeland's fallow land torn apart
For the bloody cry of the Vistula wave
For the defiled Tatras and the Baltic Sea
For the deadly September of Warsaw

For the grave that is a shining temptation
For those who get weaker in the martyr's days
Lord, save women and children
From the burning fires of Hamburg

For the cross insulted in the chapels
For the harm of the cemetery ashes
In the capitals of the enemy
Preserve perpendicular Gothic churches

Oh Lord, due to Your sign at the towers
Due to the tree of Your Passion and glory
We ask You by the whisper of the prayer
We beg You by the storm of the chorale

In the hours of the triumph over the defeat
When You appear in Your anger
Give us strength, give us the joy of the victory
And pull out the hatred from our souls

In the fire of the thunders that strike
The last bastions and dams
Let the hearts save from the rubble
Your forever sacred Testament

 

Thank you wm for the new translation of 'The Prayer' . I hadn't thought of using lyricstranslate.com for poetry.

I agree that computer translations can be difficult. For exampled in the second version of 'The Prayer' there is the line

"In the capitals of the enemy
Preserve perpendicular Gothic churches"

In the first version it is


" Keep safe in enemy cities
their soaring gothic churches."

To a poet there is a difference between 'perpendicular' and 'soaring' -maybe a subtle or a significant difference, but words in a poem are selected deliberately to give a more intense impression than words generally used in prose.

With regards to John Guzlowski, I am due to interview him for my blog so will certainly raise the question of 'second generation war poetry'. In his book 'Echoes of Tattered Tongues', John Guzlowski mentioned a realisation as a young man “Really there aren’t a lot of people writing about people like my parents and other DPs”.

Have started search for on line information on Feliks Konarski . Appreciate the reference to his work.

 

lyricstranslate.com is a volunteers based site, but not many poets among them, so unfortunately many translations are not much better than robo-translations.

Perpendicular Gothic is of course this Gothic. In this case the computer was maybe better with "soaring" - the original uses exactly this word.
But the real intention was to pray respectively: for innocent people, their sacred places giving them hope and comfort in times of trouble, and their faith. So it doesn't matter it is soaring churches, Gothic churches, places of prayer. I would say (as an ignorant in this matter) the words are not important, their meaning is.
In both cases the rhymes, flow and beauty of the poem weren't translated anyway.


As to "second generation war poetry", I don't know, Shakespeare never was in Rome, but his Julius Caesar seems not that bad, and even is historically accurate.