-
Chapter Seven. S.O.S.
- State University of New York Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
D Chapter Seven s.o.s. Both the predicament of the Jews and the general indifference of the world to it are evoked in a slim anthology of poetry entitled Z OtchJani jOut of the Abyss). Published in 1944 and containing the work of such poets as CzesJaw MiJosz jdestined to become the Nobel laureate for literature), MieczysJaw JastrUll ja much respected poet in postwar Poland), and Jan Kott jwho was to become an eminent Shakespearean scholar and literary critic), this anthology was microfilmed and secretly sent to London and later to New York by the National Jewish Committee jZydowski komitet narodowy ). This collection of poetry on the Jewish catastrophe is a living testament to the vital, albeit futile, role poetry played in the Holocaust. For as late as 1944, the poets, both Jewish and Christian , tried to secure help by rousing the conscience and moral indignation in their readers abroad. Jakob Apenszlak, the New York editor of Out of the Abyss, comments that "wiersze te stanowiQ rewelacie nie tylko ze wzgl~du na okolicznosci, w iakich powstaJy.... MowiQ nam wieffei 0 tym, co czuli, co mysleli, iak przeimowali ciosy rQk zezwierz~conych Niemc6w niewolonicy ghett, skazancy zepchni~ci na dno upokorzenia i mQk cielesnych, nit suche zestawienia fakt6w i sprawozdania z terenu martyrologji."1 jThese poems are not only a revelation of the conditions under which they were created.... More eloquent than chronicles of facts and reports from the annals of martyrdom, these poems unveil what the slaves of the ghettos-the condemned, the humiliated, subjected to physical punishment-felt and thought, how they responded to the blows of the bestial Germans.1 174 D Bearing the Unbearable Jazef Wittlin, also in New York at this time, writes, "Rf}ka driy, if}zyk zasycha, dech zamiera-gdy czytamy te wiersze. Wstyd pali oczy, co przesuwaifJ sif} po czarnych, zaJobnych z?dach tych pi?knych a gorzkich str6f. Wstyd oczom, ze czytajg te spiewne relikwie zagJady i bochaterstwa, ie czytajfJ i nie slepng.,,2 (The hand trembles, language dries up, breath dies when we read these poems. Shame stings our eyes as they cross the black, funereal verses of the beautiful and bitter strophes. Shamed are the eyes that read the songlike reliquaries of destruction, that read and are not struck blind.) CzesJaw MiJOS2 and MieczysJaw Jastruri Indifference, the Nemesis of Humanity That no political action would result from the moral revulsion and anguish of the few readers abroad, poets like MiJosz, Kott, and Jastrun may have suspected in 1944 after most of the Polish Jews had already been killed. Nonetheless, MiJosz's "Campo di Fiori" and JastrUI1's "Tu takze jak w Jerusalem" (Here Too as in Jerusalem) are a last-ditch attempt to prod the conscience of those who might yet be able to help. Although both poets have their poetic roots in the mellifluous language of Polish romanticism, both "Campo dei Fiori" and "Here too as in Jerusalem" are marked by language characteristic of restrained reporting rendered by an objective observer. It is this aesthetic of emotional self-control, more than any other stylistic compulsion, that produces an unsettling aura of the commonplace. This shift is not unusual for MiJoszj indeed, he is famous for his multidimensional poetic sensibility and his gift for speaking with many voices. These characteristics are in part attributed to the breadth and depth of his experiences. Born in Lithuania in 1911, he had lived in different parts of Tsarist Russia, Estonia, and Poland, frequently leaving and later returning to the same place, and always open to the culture that distinguished the place where he lived. Moreover, he had close ties with numerous literary movements in Poland, often determining their development. During the German occupation he lived in Warsaw, where he was editor of an underground anthology of poetry, Piesn niepodJegJa (The Independent Song). In 1951 he left Poland, lived in Paris until 1960, and since that time he has lived in the United States, where he has taught Polish literature at Berkeley. [44.212.26.248] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 13:54 GMT) s.o.s. 0 175 The brutality of the German invasion of Poland in 1939 caused Mi.losz (like many other Polish poets mentioned in this study) to call into question the very purpose and morality of art. The savagery that he witnessed challenged the humanistic principles and faith that are associated with poetry. He argues: The act of writing a poem is an act of faith; yet...