Appendix: “Vey dir”

Summary

Vey dir

Yitzkhok Katzenelson

Woe to You

Yitzkhok Katzenelson

Woe to You

Woe to you, who have murdered all my children

and all my old ones, the oldest of my people.

I tell you, nation of murderers, children are never lost,

the aged never die before their time.

Woe to you, who have entirely exterminated my peaceful people,

burned down my houses of worship,

all my shuls together with the Jews in them,

and my holy Jewish cities.

Woe to you, who have destroyed an unarmed people,

who have destroyed a people unprotected by anyone.

I tell you, those who were unprotected will punish you:

you will be judged by the people without weapons!

Woe to you, nation of child-killers, murderers of the old,

who have annihilated my children and my old ones.

I tell you, murdered old people cannot be hidden,

murdered children heave from the grave as from their mother's womb.

I tell you, innocent murdered Jews do not die,

a people is not destroyed without reason.

I tell you, nation of murderers, Jerusalem cannot be laid waste,

Shoot! Shoot into my heart … that is your last shot!

Woe to you, your evil hour—listen—has struck,

soon, soon, a plague on you and you’re finished:

We’ll pursue you on every road,

we’ll burst out of our graves.

With wife and child, with grandpa and grandma,

those shot by you for no reason,

the people you buried alive,

we shall stand up and bleakly stare at you.

We shall stand up on every single road,

silent, silent, silent as the grass;

mutely we’ll stand and mutely we’ll ask,

why have you murdered us, why?

Bloody, unclean, you’ll run away

and a savage terror will seize you:

we, the dead, will head you off on every road,

we’ll block you on every path.

We, the slain, will stand up and stare at you,

stare at you mutely in our anguish,

and, staring at you, devour you in silence:

we’ll cling to your very bones.