I visited Auschwitz concentration camp last year and picked up an incredible poetry book with poems from people who lived and died in the concentration camp. There is one which I found very beautiful and tried to translate to English but it is very difficult. Can anyone provide a better translation than mine that captured the poems beautiful simplicity. The picture is the original and here is my translation:
He is here and she is there
In the middle a fastened gate
They meet with a lonely stare
Forced to separate
.
He is here and she is there
In the middle of death and waste
Then he breached through the barrier!
And she rushes into his embrace.
4 comments
Your translation is so much better than what I was thinking.
What an amazing and moving poem. Thanks for sharing!
It’s hard to translate poems. You did well but theres something missing from the iryginal I’m not sure author wanted to point. Probably “Fastrned” would be more approoriate.
Post is written with big letter like Wielki Post (en. Lent). But normal “post” as a state of starving from Religious manners – Fast. Fastened gate has good dual meaning for that. Also it could be something else in foreign language.
Your translation changes so much that i’d hesitate to call it the same thing.
> > Then he breached through the barrier!
This especially is NOT in the original at all.
Start with this:
> He is here and she there
> Between them, a guarded gate
> On one side, alone stands he
> On the other, so does she
> He is here… and she there
> Between them, a pail of trash
> Suddenly, through the gates
> She rushes to him
It is so dark.