Bojan Ajdič, Slovenia, biography

Summary

Bojan Ajdič was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in 1921. On March 19, 1944, the twenty-three-year-old Slovenian teacher was taken to Dachau, where he was registered as prisoner number 65,715. He was freed when Dachau was liberated in 1945.

The following poem was written under the title “Last Day” on December 31, 1944, when the author received his first letter from home. Later he changed and expanded the poem, gave it the title “Premonition,” and published it under the pseudonym “Blajc” in the journal Borec in 1954. The author preserved the original handwritten draft along with a calendar of the years 1944–45 in a pocket notebook.

Slutnja

Zadnji mesec v letu

in v njem zadnji dan—

pa prejel sem prvo pismo.

Kaj, če bil bi že sežgan

v tem tujem svetu,

kjer ljudje več nismo?

Ne tega dne—

že davno prej je legla

dachauska megla

na misli, na moje srce!

Ne ljudje, ne živali, ne bilke

—zdaj smo tukaj le številke …

Zadnji mesec,

v letu zadnji dan,

a komaj prvo pismo …

In v njem pozdrav

v obetajoči sreči:

“Ljubi moj, si zdrav?”

Je kasni ta pozdrav

tudi zadnji iz domovine?

Do drugega lahko izgine

moj skelet v skeletov peči …

“Si zdrav, si zdrav?”

O, zdrav sem, zdrav,

čeprav v nemoči

telo se sloči …

Zdrav sem, zdrav,

če zdravje moč je za pozdrav

in klic za zadnje maščevanje:

“Dachau, prekleti Dachau!”

Preden pa pride iz daljav

v pismu drugi pozdrav

zame, med tisoči mrtvo bilko,

—bodo v taborišču Dachau

mojo že izbrisali številko …

Premonition

The last month of the year

and the last day of that—

and here's my first letter.

What if I'd already been burned

in this alien world

where we're not even people?

It didn't just happen today—

long ago the fogs of Dachau

came to enshroud

my thoughts, my heart.

Not people, not animals, not even lumber

—here you become a mere number.

The last month,

last day of the year,

this first letter just makes it …

In its greeting a flicker

of happiness gleams,

“My darling, are you well?”

Will this late greeting

be the last one from home?

Before another comes, my bones

could perish in the bone-consuming oven …