Selected Poems from Chaim Grade's Refugees

Abstract

Selected Poems from Chaim Grade's Refugees Beata Kasiarz Though often regarded as one of the most important Yiddish prose writers of the twentieth century, Chaim Grade (1910–1982) was first and foremost a prolific poet. Born in Vilna, "the Jerusalem of Lithuania," Grade spent his formative years studying in iconic Novaradok mussar yeshivas, only to abandon his studies at the age of twenty-two to pursue his passion for poetry. A member of the literary and artistic group Yung vilne [Young Vilna], Grade's first poetry publications in the 1930s focused on his beloved, pious mother, Vela Blumenthal, and the tensions arising between his deeply religious upbringing and his enthusiastic embrace of the secular world—subjects that would come to thoroughly permeate his literary oeuvre. When the Nazis invaded Vilna in 1941, Grade, upon the urging of his mother and first wife, Frumme-Liebe, fled to the Soviet interior. He spent the remainder of the war as a refugee, wandering the Central Asian Soviet Republics and writing poetry that would eventually be published in the book Pleytim (Refugees, 1947). In this collection, Grade delves into the complex nature of grief, mourning, and survival guilt, juxtaposing the foreign landscapes with the Vilna of his youth. The selected poems translated here disabuse us of any lingering notion that the plight of refugees is a safe reprieve—here they are hunted, chased, and abused, all the while shouldering the trauma of the decimated Jewish world they left behind. After Grade's first (and final) visit to the ruins of Vilna at the end of 1945, he and his second wife, Inna Hecker (1925–2010), moved to Poland, then France, before finally immigrating to New York in 1948, where they remained for the rest of their lives. Grade's move to America corresponded with his shift to primarily writing prose, through [End Page 307] which he painstakingly recreated and memorialized the now destroyed Lithuanian Jewry of his past. Although Grade published eleven books of poetry, only a single book, Oyf mayn veg tsu dir (On My Way to You, 1969), was translated (into Hebrew), in addition to occasional poems published in Hebrew and English newspapers during Grade's lifetime. After his death in 1982, Inna Hecker Grade managed Grade's literary estate protectively and usually denied requests to publish translations. Upon her death in 2010, the Public Administrator of Bronx County announced a public auction of the estate, and in 2013, YIVO and the National Library of Israel jointly purchased the collection. The Estate of Chaim Grade and Inna Hecker Grade is housed in the YIVO archives and library, and is in the process of being digitized. [End Page 308] [End Page 309] IN NIGHT, IN WIND In night, in wind, and in rainwe scatter through streets, parkstrain stations, stairs,like falling leaves of autumn.Drifting from train to train,we envy those who no longerbeg for a drink of water—God is already beside them.A pack of scrawny,scraggly beasts,we fight for waterwith fists, with hellish screams,cracking open the skywith brutal, aching cries.Our eyes, glimmering knivestear through the wallsas we wander the streets,in night, in wind, and in rain. The sons and daughters of Polandhowl like starved wolves.With thick beards like swamp grass,terrified and wild like oxenthat rip themselves away from the slaughter—we escaped Lithuania.Like a stray dog,Ukraine trembles and bows,and the villagers, like crows,mourn us, even though they drove us awayfrom their peaceful homes—still, death cuts them down.Trapped in the storm,waves engulf them. [End Page 310] The Don won't cradle us,the Neman spat rocks,from Minsk to icy Samarawe press on—a dark cloud.Vilnius meets Zhytomyr,both in mourning,buried in homeless grief,on snow-swept Siberian paths.Glowing lava, we flowfrom Zhmerynka, Bryansk, Poltava,over all the fences and borders.We'll poison the skywith our wounded bodiesscreaming towards heaven,a night brigade wailing:Who will demand the blood-reckoningfor bodies left to rot like trash in the street,in night, in wind, and in rain. [End...