Farewell to Yiddishland
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RIS BIB ENDNOTEPublication date: 25.08.2025
Przekładaniec, 2025, Issue 50 – 50!, pp. 158-170
https://doi.org/10.4467/16891864PC.25.012.21609Authors
Pożegnanie Jidyszlandu
In Canto VI of his Shoah epic poem Dos lid fun oysgehargetn yidishn folk [The Song of the Murdered Jewish People] Itzhak Katzenelson describes orphans in the Warsaw Ghetto at the end of the winter of 1942, half a year before the ghetto’s liquidation. His description of a two-year-old girl, who had seen horrors in reality which her grandmother could not see in dreams, surprisingly moves from the girl’s “serious eyes” to “Jewish seriousness” (der yidisher der ernst) which is like “a Holy Scripture for the world”. The article comments on several translations of this passage: the Polish, English, French and two German ones. All translators interpret “der yidisher der ernst” – against the author’s actual intention, according to the argument presented – in the context of the Shoah and its significance for the non-Jewish world rather than as the last tribute to the perished Yiddishland and Jewish uniqueness among the nations. It is suggested that the main source of the problem is not the word’s polysemy but rather Katzenelson’s exalted last vision of “true Jewishness”.
Berl Katznelson, https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berl_Katznelson (21.11.2024).
Biermann Wolf 2004. Großer Gesang des Jizchak Katzenelsonvom ausgerotteten jüdischen Volk, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mn9ijD6mJNH3_0MnrVFxUa776pO4hLXZ0 (21.11.2024).
Geller Ewa, Polit Monika (red.) 2008. Jidyszland – polskie przestrzenie, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego.
Kacenelson Jicchok 1945. Dos lid fun ojsgehargetn jidiszn folk [Pieśń o zamordowanym żydowskim narodzie], Pariz: Imprimerie A.B.C.
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Katzenelson Yitskhok 2007. Le chant du peuple juif assassiné, B. Baum, Paris: Bibliothèque Medem.
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Niborski Jicchok 1999. Werterbuch fun loszn-kojdesz-sztamike werter in jidisz [Słownik słów pochodzenia hebrajskiego w jidysz], Pariz: Medem-bibljotek.
Pawelec Andrzej, Sitarz Magdalena 2016.’Dos lid funem ojsgehargetn jidiszn folk’ Jicchoka Kacenelsona – po polsku, „Przekładaniec” 32, s. 80–92.
Information: Przekładaniec, 2025, Issue 50 – 50!, pp. 158-170
Article type: Original article
Titles:
Jagiellonian University in Kraków
Poland
Published at: 25.08.2025
Article status: Open
Licence: CC BY
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Polish