Maurycy Szymeltranslated by Aniela and Jerzy Gregorek
A Ballad about the Fools from Chelm
Chasids from Chelm were terribly concerned because the copper, full moon hid in the bearded clouds. Therefore, Rabbi Isaac ordered them to do everything to find the moon which they needed that night so they could pray. They dispersed all over the slanting streets to look for the moon--crept onto the crooked roofs, stretched their necks, and looked with fear into the sky where there were only stars. Someone long and thin uttered the word: cemetery, Sha! There--black trees and the graves of the condemned were terrifying. A shamish, scratching his red beard said, "Maybe the moon hid himself behind the old Beit-Ha-Midrash?" So, they tiptoed around the crumbling synagogue-- but there was no sight of the moon; there was only dusk glued to narrow, tall windows. A grey hunchback, a tailor who lived nearby proposed, "Maybe he is in the pond? After all the moon likes water?" But only the clouds were soaking in the pond. Then a student from Chelm's Yeshiva screamed out of breath, "He is! He is--in the well--round! Golden!" Apparently, the moon in his copper fullness camouflaged himself in the well. They walked with their long, black cloaks grotesquely swelled by the wind to the old well in the market place, Chasids of Chelm-- sheltering the candles' fluttering flames in their pale hands. Under the moss-covered frame, which was slippery and reddish-fat, they bent their bearded heads, and sank their eyes deep into the bottom of the well. From their lips verses of praise started to float to the golden water where the moon lay, flattening in joyful laughter. After prayers--apparently afraid the month would get away, they labored to roll an enormous rock over the well. Rubbing their hands they dispersed, sneaking away through the slanting streets, skipping and murmuring. In the morning Rabbi Isaac walked with the elders through the town--already on the market square the roosters crowed, cartloads were standing, chickens, eggs, and butter were sold. But how astonished were the erudite Chasids from Chelm, when they rolled off the rock which pinched the well, and found in the water-- instead of the full moon-- --Sun--!Cadets
We thought at night in the military garrison that it would be different in a city, that one shout, one sign of fire would be enough. Speak up sleepless city, city of silent despair-- our impatient feet stamp until they thunder. Where are the old commanders--why didn't even one come? We shout with tired lungs: Generals rush in carriages to the Belvedere-- can we to stop them, hold them up, what word will overpower them? Oh, Warsaw asleep from fear, when will you hear our rebellion! Look! The black shadows of the gallows await our heads. What scream or thunder can strike down darkness and silence? We have only youth, exasperation, and rage without words. But tonight we can't die from the enemy's bullet, because, then, who will be able to raise the wind-blown banner toward the sky? Oh, sadness of closed windows, silence of foggy streets, where do you lead us on this night full of love and fury. The fire in Solec is dying out. The branches sway with red, and their rustling sneers with crackling, blackened trees. The city like a chained, black dog is on alert. It hides pain. It hides shouts. It hides rage.A Ballad about a Boy in Darkness
There are no magical dwarfs at all, God, how can I fall asleep tonight when darkness envelops the room, when nobody guards the night anymore. Under my bed, a chamber-pot and shoes-- a clown lies slit by a pocketknife. The train has stopped because the tracks are bent, and the carriage's wheel fell off. The palace went to pieces. The building blocks are scattered. Everywhere is glass, clay, paper scraps, and sawdust, but in the moonlight this garbage turns to silver and gold. How can you help, dead moon, so faraway, and unreal! Now the dread begins! In the backyard a drunkard stands with an ax, what does it matter that the moon shines for him, he is ready to kill his wife and children. How can the moon move and soften him? In the annex an old man cries out-- someone stole a diamond from his trunk. Policemen knock on the door. They come screaming to arrest the thief and return the diamond to the old man. Now the old man is fine, but the thief is doing badly, badly. How can you help, dead moon, so faraway, and unreal! What can you do to change things? The boy climbs down from the bed and cries. He can't sleep anymore tonight. He wants to repair the golden carriage, wake up the dead soldiers, and put the wheel back on the train so it can ride on the tracks again. He wants to rebuild his palace and set the elephants on their feet, but fire envelops the whole house. Wind breaks the windows, snatches the roof and carries it away. How can you help, dead moon, so faraway, and unreal! What can you do to change things? The boy stands in flames and cries.
The Shy Hand of a Jew
Maurycy (Mosze) Szymel was born into a Jewish community in Lvov in 1903. He graduated from the Jewish Humanistic Gymnasium, and was first published in 1925 in Moments, Lvov's Polish language Jewish newspaper. He published lyrics, children's poems, short stories, and plays, and became one of the most devoted co-workers of Moments, which published many Jewish poets, such as Juliusz Wit, Karol Dresdner, Anda Eker, Stefan Pomer, Artur Lauterbach, and Daniel Ihr. These were writers whose work expressed Jewish longings and praised the Jewish national soul "through a poet's words--through Polish words" as Roman Brandstaetter, one of the most well-known members of this movement, stated.Szymel's poetry revolves around the relationship between Jews and Poles as well as other aspects of his life as a Jew living in Poland. He reveals a strong feeling of connection to Poland and often relies on the color and scent of its landscape and countryside. In "Poland" (1934) he writes:
. . . gray, peasant horse
how does my love appear to you
when I caress your warm, sweaty head
with a shivering hand, the shy hand of a Jew?In the autumn of 1930, Szymel came to Warsaw from Lvov in a shabby coat and beret. He was a man of middle height, a little overweight, with a light-skinned complexion and wide blue eyes. Arnold Slucki, a poet, said that he looked like a typical member of the intelligentsia. Probably, during these years, he began studying the philology of the Polish language at Warsaw University.
Szymel lived the life of a poet-gypsy and, with difficulty, supported himself by writing poetry, literary articles and criticism, weekly columns, and translations from the Yiddish language. His name was well known in Polish as well as in Polish-Jewish newspapers: Krakow's New Journal, Warsaw's Our Review, Opinion, Lector, Helm, Literature Voice, and Warsaw Newspaper.
In the years 1930-1939, Szymel's creativity reached a peak. He published three books of his own poems, Return Home (1931), Suburban Fiddle (1932), and Lyrical Evening (1935). These poems were mainly about history, memories of his family (especially his mother), life in the Jewish ghetto, eros, and his personal feelings toward Poland. The critic Karol Wictor Zawodzinski praised Szymel's "real virtuosity of rhythm." During this period of time, Szymel also published six books of Yiddish translations. Slowly, as he began to express himself more in the Yiddish language, he became a bilingual poet.
Though his reputation was established as a Jew writing in Polish, he decided to write his poems to Jews in Yiddish, which he signed with his native name, Mosze (Moses). He published these poems in Hajnt, and in two monthly magazines, Globus and Szriftin. He later collected them as a book of poems entitled Sadness in Me (Mir iz umetil), and published them in 1936. They were reprinted in 1937, due to Szymel's increasing popularity.
In 1939, after World War II broke out, he succeeded in escaping from Warsaw to his hometown, Lvov, where, under Soviet occupation, he published his new poems written in Yiddish in Soviet Literature in 1940. When the Germans took over Lvov, he became an office worker in Judenrat and is believed to have shared the fate of nearly all Jews living in the city--he was murdered in the concentration camp in Janowski, in 1942. This version of his death is generally accepted rather than another, which reports that he was murdered in the Warsaw ghetto. Since his death, no book of his poetry has been published, either in Polish or Yiddish. His work has only appeared in anthologies, and personal as well as bibliographical information about him has often been mistaken.
Szymel's most prestigious poem, as acknowledged by critics, is "Genealogia," which was published in two widely circulated anthologies published in Warsaw: Stanislaw Grochowiak and Jaroslaw Maciejewski's Polish Poetry (1973); and in Ryszard Matuszewski and Severyn Pollak's Polish Poetry 1914-1939 (1962).
His individual poems have been translated into Hebrew and published in literary reviews and in anthologies in Tel Aviv. These poems were translated by Dov Sadan (1936), A. A. Fajans (1937), and Gabriel Talpir (1938). Since it was before the war, Szymel likely knew about these translations because he was a close friend of Sadan (Sztok), who often wrote about Szymel's creativity in his Hebrew and Yiddish magazines.
Szimszon Melcer translated and included Szymel's four poems in his anthology, Al naharot, published in 1956 and reprinted in 1977. Also, Mosze Basok translated and included three of Szymel's poems in his Hebrew anthology Selected Jewish Poetry (Miwchar szirat jidisz) in 1963. Szoszana Raczynska translated forty of Szymel's poems and published them in a bilingual Polish-Hebrew edition, in 1995 in Israel.
The collection in which these poems will appear, Native Foreigner: Selected Poems 1926-1939 by Maurycy Szymel, represents the first English translation of Maurycy Szymel's work.
Aniela and Jerzy Gregorek have co-translated many Polish poets, including works by Boguslaw Zurakowski, Zbigniew Czuchajowski, and Adam Ziemianin.
