I. Babi Yar

There is no memorial above Babi Yar.
The steep ravine is like a coarse tombstone.
I'm frightened,
I feel as old today
as the Jewish race itself.
I feel now that I am a Jew.
Here I wander through ancient Egypt.
And here I hang on the cross and die,
and I still bear the mark of the nails.
I feel that I am Dreyfus.
The bourgeois rabble denounce and judge me.
I am behind bars, I am encircled,
persecuted, spat on, slandered,
and fine ladies with lace frills
squeal and poke their parasols into my face.
I feel that I am a little boy in Bielostok.
Blood is spattered over the floor.
The ringleaders in the tavern are getting brutal.
They smell of vodka and onions.
I'm kicked to the ground, I'm powerless,
in vain I beg the persecutors.
They guffaw: “Kill the Yids! Save Russia!”
A grain merchant beats up my mother.
Oh my Russian people, I know
that at heart you are internationalists,
but there have been those with soiled hands
who abused your good name.
I know that my land is good.
How filthy that without the slightest shame
the anti-Semites proclaimed themselves:
“The Union of the Russian People.”
I feel that I am Anne Frank,
as tender as a shoot in April,
I am in love and have no need of words,
but we need to look at each other.
How little we can see or smell!
The leaves and the sky are shut off from us,
but there is a lot we can do —
we can tenderly embrace each other
in the darkened room!
— “Someone's coming!”
— “Don't be frightened. These are the sounds of spring,
spring is coming.
Come to me,
give me your lips quickly!”
— “They're breaking down the door!”
— “No! It's the ice breaking!”
Above Babi Yar the wild grass rustles,
the trees look threatening, as though in judgment.
Here everything silently screams,
and, baring my head,
I feel as though I am slowly turning grey.
And I become a long, soundless scream
above the thousands and thousands buried here,
I am each old man who was shot here,
I am each child who was shot here.
No part of me can ever forget this.
Let the “International” thunder out
when the last anti-Semite on the earth
has finally been buried.
There is no Jewish blood in my blood,
but I feel the loathsome hatred
of all anti-Semites as though I were a Jew —
and that is why I am a true Russian!