Sunday, March 30, 2014

BABI YAR - FORGET THIS?




This is a poem by a Russian poet, Evgeny Yevtushenko. He wrote about the tragedy of Babi Yar and his reaction to it.
I am sorry for an inferior translation, - these words were boring a hole in my mind, and I had to get them out.

BABI YAR

There's no monument over Babi Yar,
A severe cliff face, - the only rough gravestone.
I am scared. Today I am as old
As a Jewish race!

It seems to me, I am a Jew.
Here I am wondering around the ancient Egypt.
And here - I am dying on a cross,
And there are still holes from the nails
On my hands even now!

I feel, like I am Dreifus,
Haunted, hunted, spat upon.
I am arrested, encircled,
And the ladies in Brussel lace, screaming,
Stick their umbrellas in my face...

It seems to me, I am Anne Frank.
I am transparent, like an April branch.
I love, I don't need to see, I just want
Us to look into each other.

- "They're coming here!"
- "Don't be afraid, those are the sounds of the Spring,
she is coming! Come to me, give me your lips!
The door is breaking? No, it's the ice on the river!"

There's no monument over the Babi Yar.
The trees look threateningly, like judges.
Everything is silently screaming here,
And, with my hat off, I feel -
my hair is becoming white.

And all of me is one unending
Shrill cry over thousands upon thousands
Of the executed!
I am - every old man,
I am - every child killed here!

Nothing in me will forget it.
Let The International sound
When the last on this Earth anti-Semite  dies!

There's no Jewish blood in my veins,
But the anti-Semites hate me with terrible hate
As if I was a Jew,
And that makes me 
A REAL RUSSIAN!

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