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Spring is coming, the sun is warm,
You can hear the rains of the early storm.
Life is sprouting forth with green buds, as it must
But, I couldn’t see it through my window, full of dust.
Through tight Ghetto walls, without any hope
Through unspeakable fear, and the gallows’ rope,
No, I didn’t see you Spring, though you’re so near,
‘Cause you see, all has ended, the World turned weird..
The world order has ended, and is horrendously spinning,
The beginning is the end, and the end the beginning…
Only you, each year, as a benevolent queen
is coming to grace us with a spring blanket of green..
And although the world is upside down,
and God has turned off the heavenly stars,
You’ve found your way, in spite of all
to the Ghetto’s iron bars.
Strange, Mother Spring, aren’t you ashamed?
Don’t you know the news?
Why, we are Jews…
Today, locked behind iron bars
We’re wearing your Sun on our yellow stars.
In the tiny little courtyards
With the stench of the sewers,
Children are playing with blocks, hide-and-seek,
Skinny, pale, fearful of surprise,
In their little faces are their shining dark eyes,
Lively children’s eyes…
‘Cause father’s grave didn’t sprout yet with any blade of grass,
‘Cause sister’s letters out of camp are full of pain and distress,
‘Cause brother got the “Summons”, and hasn’t shown up yet,
‘Cause mother is ill with shivers, fever,
a doctor she can’t get
‘Cause in the home there are no potatoes or bread,
and without food, hunger drives you utterly mad.
And the morning is so pleasant and nice,
And he’s famished, and cold as ice.
And there, on the Front, “Im Schweren Kampf”,
Are falling soldiers, “für Führer und Vaterland“,
And in the Ghetto, little children…
Who needs in the Ghetto children whining?
Are they happy that the sun is shining?
And why is the sun in the Ghetto shining?
Everywhere is famine, darkness, despair.
Death, oblivion, horrendous nightmares.
Corpses, blood, tears, I dream of rescue.
Who’s to rescue? With a laugh he sighed,
Oh, it’s nothing, just another Jew died…
Oh God, if you are,
Hear our cries of distress,
We pray and beseech you,
S.O.S.!
