Over Babi Yar there are no memorials. The steep hillside like a rough inscription. I am frightened. Today I am as old as the Jewish race. I seem to myself a Jew at this moment. I, wandering in Egypt. I, crucified. I perishing. Even today the mark of the nails. I think also of Dreyfus. I am he. The Philistine my judge and my accuser. Cut off by bars and cornered, ringed round, spat at, lied about; the screaming ladies with the Brussels lace poke me in the face with parasols. I am also a boy in Belostok, the dropping blood spreads across the floor, the public-bar heroes are rioting in an equal stench of garlic and of drink. I have no strength, go spinning from a boot, shriek useless prayers that they don’t listen to; with a cackle of ‘Thrash the kikes and save Russia!’ the corn-chandler is beating up my mother. I seem to myself like Anna Frank to be transparent as an April twig and am in love, I have no need for words, I need for us to look at one another. How little we have to see or to smell separated from foliage and the sky, how much, how much in the dark room gently embracing each other. They’re coming. Don’t be afraid. The booming and banging of the spring. It’s coming this way. Come to me. Quickly, give me your lips. They’re battering in the door. Roar of the ice.
Over Babiy Yar rustle of the wild grass. The trees look threatening, look like judges. And everything is one silent cry. Taking my hat off I feel myself slowly going grey. And I am one silent cry over the many thousands of the buried; am every old man killed here, every child killed here. O my Russian people, I know you. Your nature is international. Foul hands rattle your clean name. I know the goodness of my country. How horrible it is that pompous title the anti-semites calmly call themselves, Society of the Russian People. No part of me can ever forget it. When the last anti-semite on the earth is buried for ever let the International ring out. No Jewish blood runs among my blood, but I am as bitterly and hardly hated by every anti-semite as if I were a Jew. By this I am a Russian.
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Yevtushenko
Over Babi Yar
there are no memorials.
The steep hillside like a rough inscription.
I am frightened.
Today I am as old as the Jewish race.
I seem to myself a Jew at this moment.
I, wandering in Egypt.
I, crucified. I perishing.
Even today the mark of the nails.
I think also of Dreyfus. I am he.
The Philistine my judge and my accuser.
Cut off by bars and cornered,
ringed round, spat at, lied about;
the screaming ladies with the Brussels lace
poke me in the face with parasols.
I am also a boy in Belostok,
the dropping blood spreads across the floor,
the public-bar heroes are rioting
in an equal stench of garlic and of drink.
I have no strength, go spinning from a boot,
shriek useless prayers that they don’t listen to;
with a cackle of ‘Thrash the kikes and save Russia!’
the corn-chandler is beating up my mother.
I seem to myself like Anna Frank
to be transparent as an April twig
and am in love, I have no need for words,
I need for us to look at one another.
How little we have to see or to smell
separated from foliage and the sky,
how much, how much in the dark room
gently embracing each other.
They’re coming. Don’t be afraid.
The booming and banging of the spring.
It’s coming this way. Come to me.
Quickly, give me your lips.
They’re battering in the door. Roar of the ice.
Over Babiy Yar
rustle of the wild grass.
The trees look threatening, look like judges.
And everything is one silent cry.
Taking my hat off
I feel myself slowly going grey.
And I am one silent cry
over the many thousands of the buried;
am every old man killed here,
every child killed here.
O my Russian people, I know you. Your nature is international.
Foul hands rattle your clean name.
I know the goodness of my country. How horrible it is that pompous title the anti-semites calmly call themselves, Society of the Russian People.
No part of me can ever forget it.
When the last anti-semite on the earth
is buried for ever
let the International ring out.
No Jewish blood runs among my blood,
but I am as bitterly and hardly hated
by every anti-semite
as if I were a Jew. By this
I am a Russian.
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