Steven Berkoff - Unpublished Work 

Evacuation

Többens, factory owner, gives guarantee,
’The workshop workers are safe, don’t join the mob!
It’s true we’re safe, they need our industry,
Why die in glory, when in time, we may be free?’

Többens grins hard, ‘Your permit makes you safe,
That means you’re vital for the war machine,
Those without permits will of course be shot,
Come to the Umschlagplatz, Arbeit macht frei!’

Five thousand workers duly assembled there,
We have some concentration camps to choose,
Majdanek, Auschwitz, Mauthausen, Buchenwald,
Which one do you think will have the better view?

But now the S.S. had complete control,
The factory owners had lost their cherished prize,
The workers would be daily worked and flogged,
And at the end, death marches for exercise.

The fourth day of this fierce unequal struggle,
The Nazis now strengthened their vicious grip,
Flame throwers scorched the hideouts of the rebels,
They jumped from windows and fell like broken twigs.

Whole families sometimes wrapped themselves in sheets,
Tied strongly, they descend the burning pyre,
But in the shadows, the emissaries from hell,
Were waiting to fulfil their heart’s desire.

Yet the rebel fighters defend the older Jews,
Huddled together in their stinking bunkers,
In Milna Street, the desperate hundred flew
Into their saviour arms, rescued from hunters.

The bunkers now were useless, choked with smoke,
As hundreds, thousands, sought a place to hide,
Wandering desperately in the sleepless night,
With their few possessions by their side.

Breath

Daniel Anielewicz wrote these words so stark:
’Most of us will die sooner or later,
In bunkers thousands are hiding in the dark,
No air or water, surviving just on hate.

The bunkers became like ovens, roasting flesh,
The houses above burnt down to their foundations,
And searing hell-like heat spread everywhere,
No window, light or water, no salvation.

‘I sweat and think of nothing but fresh air,
How simple pleasures become the most divine,
We sit with open mouths within our mine,
Even a candle’s tongue we cannot spare.

‘We cannot talk, we cannot breathe or eat,
The food supplies are rotted by the mould,
Which ruins the bread and destroys our precious meat,
They say it’ll cool down soon, I don’t think so.

‘Two days ago this house burnt to the ground,
Yet the heat increases every single hour,
We lie there, silent ears alert for sounds,
Of Nazis poking, while beneath we cower.

‘Near naked now but now, nobody cares,
Oh God, some water, please, and a little breeze,
Let’s dream of walking in the fresh spring air,
And sitting in cafés and drinking teas…

‘Some wretch went crazy, dehydrated, insane,
Crawled to the entrance, moved the hidden cover,
Gulped down the air just like it was champagne,
This could be our suicide, my brother.’

The entire ghetto now was set ablaze,
Oh, how much more, how much more can we take?
Thousands near physical and mental collapse,
We are deserted even by the rats!

When a bunker was by chance discovered,
And the Nazis shout out to surrender,
We say farewell to our friends and lovers
And give the swines some bullets to remember.

Death

April twenty-third, the uprising’s fifth day,
General Stroop, convinced the end’s in sight,
Mission must be accomplished by sixteen hundred hours.
But the Jews won’t surrender, those parasites!

Still hiding in bunkers, in the sewers’ shit,
Crawling through broken pipes, sleeping in pits,
Hiding under corpses for the cemetery,
Oh life, how desperately we cling to thee…

April twenty-fifth, it was the seventh day,
’Set fire to the bunkers! Roast them alive!
Blow the damn things up, force them from their sties,
Break! Smash! Kill! Burn! Yes! This is our way!’

Sixteen hundred and ninety Jews captured today,
Two hundred and seventy-four shot, others died in the flames,
Till sundown the Nazis worked with utmost zeal,
Mein Gott! They really earn their bloody pay!

April 26th

For days we rot in darkness, thirst and heat,
Hearing only sounds above our heads
Of Nazi shouts and heavy stamping feet,
We cannot move, and slowly wait for death.

We sit and dream of mothers, brothers, girls,
Of life before this nightmare came,
Before the raging sickness of the world
Descended upon us, turning all insane.

If only we had just some minutes more,
We know the Russian army would be here…
They’d sink their teeth into these beasts,
These aliens from another sphere.

Not human beings but something dead and cold,
Vicious, unfeeling, lacking any soul,
Barbarians, stupid, such a Philistine breed,
Why, in Germany, did the devil drop his seed?!

Not yet, not yet, we are not dead, not yet,
From blown-up bunkers we’re too weak to crawl,
So shoot us in our pleasant unmarked graves,
We cannot even stand, but we can pray.

Like Midas, Stroop counts his killed and captured prey,
Now nearly thirty thousand and many more today,
Some throw themselves from windows, shouting out their curse,
’I shit on Hitler, you bastard!’ then their skulls burst.

Mila Five

Scene of bitter struggle at Mila Five,
Germans surround the house, demand we leave,
No answer, so they bomb the house to flames,
The devils wish to see us burned alive.

Germans on one side, the other a sea of flames,
We dash into the courtyard, our fighters gather there,
’Please God, they’ll find a way, these young and brave,
Please listen to us carefully, don’t despair…’

The only solution, must dash through the flames,
While shooting at the enemy, okay?
’We’ll go first’… The bullets flew like rain,
We reached the other side, the Nazis didn’t stay!

Unwilling to do combat, the Krauts had fled.
They dare not fight, with those who would risk all!
Flames licked our heads as through the flames we dashed,
Singed faces, hair and clothes, we’re through the wall!

Leszno.

Six ten A.M. with tanks taking the lead,
The hearty singing of soldiers march along,
Accompanied by a band can you believe,
Puffed with pride they strut to the military song.

But from Leszno Street another song was heard,
The beat of Molotov cocktails and grenades,
Now the soldiers danced to a different tune,
As Germans fell, they waltzed into their graves!

Survivor Felix Olar verifies:

‘We sent a hail of bullets and grenades,
The street echo’d with shouts and shrieks and moans,
Our side fought in every possible way,
The girls replaced grenades we threw like stones.

‘Like stones upon a riverbank we’d play,
”See who can hit that distant bottle first”,
That’s how we used to waste a summer’s day,
By throwing stones, but now the Nazis cursed!

‘Brave girls, they showed no fear, they looked so calm,
Ready to die honourably on the spot,
They came and went, no sound, no tears,
Their soothing presence was to us a balm.’

Young rebel fighter, Dorka Goldkorn writes,
’I was in the Smocza sector at the time,
We jumped for joy, we saw the tank in flames,
The most beautiful moment of our lives!

From a window, two men and a woman lean,
Dishevelled, faces blackened, their clothes on fire,
Laughing Germans photograph the ‘scene’,
The victims hurl themselves to Earth, and slowly expire.

No-one offers assistance to quench the flames,
Just the mocking laughter of spectators,
The smell of blood intoxicates their brains,
Sated at last, they march off singing, elated.

Mordecai Anielewicz to the Aryan side

Have you sent food packages? (Read: weapons)
Don’t forget our eggs, (homemade grenades)
The kids would love some candy (send some bullets)
And don’t forget salami (we need revolvers).

Michalek, alias Henjek Kleinweiss,
Ghetto product and abandoned child,
He lived by selling lemonade in the street,
A soul spawned in the slums and running wild.

Joined the rebels, courageous, intelligent and agile,
Quickly mastered the use of arms, his skills
Were needed, escort a woman to the other side,
But they were captured to be deported or killed.

Shrewd Michalek told the officers, ‘Hey, wait,
I know about some bunkers right nearby,
You want to make a deal, I’ll give you Jews,’
His captors followed eagerly the lie.

On entering a passageway he pounced,
With lightning speed he snatched the Nazi’s gun,
And shot him swiftly dead… and then he flew.
The other Nazis were amazed and stunned.

Before they could recover, Michalek reappears,
Slays two more Germans and then speeds off again,
Michalek’s cunning cost the Germans dear,
In battle the young hero met his end.

Ghettograd!

April the twenty-seventh: it’s now nine days!
The Jewish fighting organisation survives,
As one limb dies, new branches take their place,
It strikes the enemy each and every way.

Partisan tactics comrades, not just defence,
We hunt the hunters now and make our kill,
The Polish people clap and are impressed,
We need your help, my friends, not just good will.

They like to call the ghetto ‘Ghettograd’,
In honour of the famous Russian siege,
But they had armies racing to their help,
Who helps us as we helplessly bleed?!

No supporters from the outside world
To rescue the dying Ghetto, only words,
People in England and the U.S. cannot see,
For if you did, your eyes would not believe.

Such horrible crimes beyond your comprehension,
Yes, people are dying in this filthy war,
But not like this, against wild beasts of prey,
Whose poisoned minds obey no moral law!

Yes, you have armies, brave soldiers who die,
But we here die in different ways,
Unarmed women and children burned alive,
By laughing hyenas, relishing the slain.

The ghetto must not vanish without a trace,
For all that is courageous would vanish too,
The smoke clouds over the ghetto are a disgrace,
If all you can do is watch and sit and wait!

‘Poles, stop informing on the Warsaw Jews!
Put an end to this practice which defiles our name,
Stop handing them over to our enemy!
Christians, remember, Christ did not die in vain!’

Wladyslaw Sikorski, the Polish leader writes,
’The greatest crime in history is taking place,
Assist the tortured Jews, much as you can,
I beg you, show our friends a human face.’

Lest they believe the entire world had died,
For who can watch this crime and not shout out,
’Stop your criminal act of genocide,
You are less than humans, less than dogs!’

Stop it! You race of murderers, Satan’s spawn,
Stop it! For you will never again be a nation,
Stop it! Your children will wish never to have been born,
Than admit ‘My parents were of that generation!’

‘I’m sorry, we sympathise, not much we can do,
Collaboration is impossible, I’m afraid,
We have to choose the right moment to move,
Not be driven by emotion on the day.’

‘We watch from our balconies, a frightful sight!
Yes, we do eat, not a shortage of food,
Those thunderous echoes keep us awake at night.
But we must keep silent or they’ll come for us too!’

The wall has two sides

‘Wherever there is a war come the hyenas,
Sniffing to exploit the helpless Jew,
Our pathetic friends who are in hiding,
These evil ones are fortunately the few.’

The Polish race is moral, upright and Christian,
Charitable and decent in their lives,
But others in the Polish police are vicious,
Corrupt, they merge themselves with Nazi slime.

Sunday, April twenty-fifth was Eastertime,
Holidaymakers dress in gay attire,
The carousel turned and Polish spirits were light,
As a loathsome pall rose in the Warsaw sky.

There were hawkers of sweets and even cigarettes,
And music filled the square and cannon boomed,
Such a beautiful Sunday, flowers in girls’ hair,
As burning victims painfully expired.

Behind the wall the carousel is heard,
A child is cradled in her mother’s arms,
Do you ask, dear mother, why you are in hell,
While other children are dancing free from harm?

Stiffening corpses scattered in the broken streets,
Stared at by Ukrainian volunteers,
Stockings torn, shoes still on your feet,
You might be resting, dreaming away your fears.

Who knew your name? You led a full life once,
You had a purse with house keys and small change,
Bought cat food, and made delicious potato cakes,
Put plasters on your daughter when she fell.

Who knew your name? You led a full life once,
Laughed at Charlie Chaplin, wasn’t he funny?
Stared in shop windows, Fridays washed your hair,
And picnicked by the river on a Sunday.

Who knew your name? You led a full life once,
The breakfast cooked and ready at eight A.M.,
Sat and cut the cloth, lapels so finely stitched,
Returned at six and did homework for the kids.

Who knew your name? You led a full life once,
Each night your pretty daughter practised scales,
You got on buses, wrote letters to aunts,
Each Friday morning bought a chicken without fail.

‘Stand the bunker captives against a wall,
Reveal where other bunkers are, you Jews.
A bullet through your head or clemency,
You choose, they gave us many bunkers more.

‘Okay, Jew, speak in Yiddish to your friends,
Tell them be smart and leave now in one mass,
Or else we’ll blow the bunker to little shreds,
No answer? What about a taste of gas?

‘Oh, watch them stagger out, sick, choking, blind…
My God, like smoking out some dirty rats,
You should have come out, Jews, when we were kind,
Now drag your carcass to the Umschlagplatz.’

‘A splendid catch today’, the general writes,
Each day of course he keeps detailed reports,
Sixteen hundred and fifty-five Jews were caught,
One hundred and ten shot, the rest… Transport!

May First

The stupid Yids won’t leave without brute force,
So now we bomb the bloody sewage canals,
One fifty Jews escaped to the Aryan side,
Shot on the spot by police, with hunters’ eyes.

May the third, the fight continues on,
Five hundred soldiers purge and search the ruins,
Each day our numbers are reduced as we succumb
To bombs, explosives, guard dogs and gas fumes.

We leave our burrows with its air so foul,
We stumble blinded by the sudden light,
We hear jackbooted soldiers shouting, ‘Raus! Raus!’
We see the broken streets, our eyes are down.

We cannot lift our heads to see…
We collapse outside the bunkers wearily,
A woman gently holds her husband’s face,
We now must wait for what will be our fate.

May third, thirty Franciskanska Street,
Seventeen-year-old Shanan Lent was killed,
At twenty-three, Zippora Lehrer fell,
And half the Jewish fighters’ blood was spilled.

Mila Eighteen

A new sanctuary is found, Mila Eighteen,
Three hundred hunted Jews found haven there,
A well constructed bunker made by thieves,
This was the criminals’ and smugglers’ lair.

Now rebel commanders, Zionists, communists too,
Link up with gangsters and society’s rogues,
Since blood links us to every single Jew,
Now all are allies ‘gainst the common foe.

The bunker was enormous, three long blocks,
Dug deep into the earth like mythic beasts,
Lived there with creatures of the underworld,
But now we hear the tread of Nazi feet.

Always scrabbling in the burning embers,
Digging out starved or lifeless, dying Jews,
Why can’t you maniacs leave us now in peace?
Go fight your losing war instead, leave us our few!

Shmuel Asher was the king of Mila Eighteen,
From the bowels of the earth he rules,
Smuggling bread and liquor through the sewers’ lanes,
’Your subjects would go through fire and water for you.’

They were our guides by day and smoking night,
Like supple cats they’d crawl and jump the ruins,
So we could keep an eye on the German might,
Who from our hate are not so quite immune.

Not any more, we pick and choose to strike,
We scratch the gruesome monster here and there,
Had we a sharpened, deep and long steel knife,
We’d cut its jugular inside its lair.

Alas, on May the eighth the Nazis came,
’Everyone outside!’ the familiar shriek,
As they surrounded the bunker, Mila Eighteen,
The rogues obeyed, but the fighters clenched their teeth.

The Germans injected gas, threw hand grenades,
The fighters gasping, still returned the fire,
Soon the rebels began to suffocate,
’Is it not better to die when we desire?’

‘Let us give our lives back to our Lord,
Believe me, this is the noblest way to go.
By our own hands, than falling into theirs,
We fought a brave fight,’ they answered, ‘Let it be so.’

Let it be so and yes, let it be so,
As in Masada so it shall be here,
Each one took the gun for their own head,
Mila Eighteen became a memorial for the dead.

Thus ended the lives of a brave heroic group
Of courage, determination without fear,
Who inspired the Ghetto Jews to strike, rebel,
We will remember you till the end of years.

The lights are going out all over Europe,
Soon there will be darkness, cold and death,
Wherever these Barbarians tread, the hope
For humanity is sucked out with its breath.

But still, even now the battle does not end,
As bunkers are destroyed, we hide in holes,
As holes blown up in sewers, so the dregs
Of humankind still dare to live and hope.

Hope that the world outside must see this crime,
Beyond all crimes in bloodstained human history,
Beyond imagination, beyond belief,
To rip an ancient race from off the earth.

Non-combatants, civilians, women, children,
Innocent, unprepared, old people, sick…
Pregnant women and even babes in arms
Snatched from their nursing mother’s teats.

May the twelfth, thirty more bunkers found.
Six hundred sixty-three more wretched Jews,
Sent to Treblinka where time always stops,
But those who couldn’t make the train were shot.

May sixteenth, to celebrate the end
Of this victorious and murdering spree,
Stroop blows up the ancient synagogue
To emulate his Roman ancestry.

When Romans destroyed Jerusalem’s holy temple,
For that the seeds of their downfall were sown,
Stroop too will have his monument in time,
A dangling corpse, at the end of the gallow’s rope!

Shmuel Zygelbojm, an activist -
Exiled in London, friends nearly all dead,
Each day he cried for western action,
To the American military he passionately begs…

‘Save the Warsaw Jews!’ ‘We don’t have time!’

Each day, each minute, another person dies,
Each word I speak, another life is shed,
Each breath I take they suck a human life,
Each heartbeat stops another’s heartbeat dead.

‘To save the Jews, we really don’t have time,
You see the allied war machine is set,
I know the principle is really fine,
But our plans are made, we cannot change the text.’

Zygelbojm knew the ghetto was dying fast,
So he chose to die a fighter with his friends,
On May thirteenth, before the British parliament,
He set himself alight and said, ‘Amen’.

‘For these evil acts the blame does lie
On all mankind who turned their face away,
No real effort was made to stop this crime…
A hand extended would have saved much pain.

‘I cannot be silent for my murdered race,
With their weapons in their hands my dear friends fell,
I cannot die with them I am sad to say,
But throw my ashes please, in their mass grave.’

The accountant Scroop takes up his month’s account,
Seven thousand Jews were wiped out on the spot,
Six thousand nine hundred transported to Treblinka,
A handsome profit for a tiny loss.

Six hundred thirty-one bunkers were destroyed,
And that filthy ghetto burnt to the ground,
Even the synagogue exists no more,
But anyway, they’d have no customers now!

But the ghetto’s light has not been quite snuffed out,
Something’s moving in the broken earth,
The heart still beats and creatures stir at night,
No German dares enter until the morning light.

As if the Golem has awoken here,
The monster created by the Jews of Prague
To take revenge against the enemy,
And protect the old community from harm.

Stirrings in the tunnels of the earth,
The blood pours through, the heart still beats,
The hands still clench, the mouth still eats,
The eyes still see, the head still thinks.

Hundreds are still left alive who fight,
Taut faces, sucked-in cheeks, half-crazed,
The ghetto now belongs to us,
We still have plenty of those hand grenades.

May 26th
Survivor Arieh Neiberg’s diary says,
’Women and children were lying in pools of blood,
We stare at the tangle of arms and legs,
Just minutes earlier these were living flesh.

‘We stand in grief, cannot hold back our tears,
A corpse begins to move, to come to life,
A child no more than seven, blindfolded, cries,
”Jews, please find us water, have no fear…”

‘Another child she gathers up from off the ground,
Also alive, not even wounded, maybe five,
They quench their thirst, the words they tumble out,
”I’m Irka Rubenstein, she’s Halinka Eisenstadt.”

‘The Germans took us from the bunker,
”Take off your clothes,” they said, a search was made,
All afternoon we stood there, cold and naked,
By night we would be killed unless we betray…

‘Our families in the bunkers, we were afraid,
So someone volunteered, was led away,
The rest of us were killed and then we fell
Upon the ground, and there I lay quite still.

‘“When you hear the shooting,” my mother said,
”Fall quickly on the ground and do not move.”
I tried not to breathe when I was kicked,
So they’d believe that I was really dead.

‘Then they left and marched off loudly singing,
My mother’s body protected me from them,
Since her warm blood on top of me was flowing,
And so she saved me even in her death.

‘By chance I stepped on Halinka’s little foot,
It moved! I felt her pulse, the heart still beats!
We heard some voices, the killers returned I thought,
We lay there frozen, for the guns retort.

‘But then we heard your voices in our tongue,
Oh what relief, it’s safe, these men have gone,
My mother’s dead, I kissed her cheek goodbye,
Why do they do these things, please, tell me, why?’

June

We cannot do the things that people do,
We cannot wash our clothes or brush our teeth,
We cannot shave our beards or cut our hair,
We cannot walk and breathe the sweet fresh air.

We cannot make some tea or boil an egg,
We cannot eat some fruit or even bread,
We cannot sleep inside a warm, soft bed,
We cannot call a friend, our friends are dead!

One day decided to collect the rain,
Put out a series of broken pots to claim
The precious fall of heaven’s liquid silk,
We’d never know again thirst’s awful pain!

September 25th, 1943

Of forty-five that made our special group,
Just four remained alive or only just,
Starvation bloats poor Zamsz’s lovely wife,
Shorshan prays each day to God, he must.

‘There’s nothing else inside his life but faith,
My body’s swelling too, let’s go to the wall!
Let’s go to the Polish side, escape we must,
And if we fail, a bullet will solve all.’

Bricks, April 19th, 1944

And now thousands of Polish working men
Collect the bricks each day, millions of them,
Brick by brick they shift and heave and sweat,
And cart our world away in trucks!

Bricks, bricks, millions of ancient bricks…
Bricks that were our silent bedroom walls,
Bricks that heard our lovemaking and cries,
Bricks that carry the memories of our lives.

Twenty-two and a half million bricks!
Thus the Ghetto exists now in the mind,
Or reconfigured to another place,
In houses, office blocks or factories.

Put your ear to that piece of grimy brick,
That nice extension to your garden wall,
Just as the sea whispers to you in shells,
Do you hear the sobbing cries from Hell?

But now the shreds and shards of Jewish life
That still somehow exist, a shattered urn,
We must escape into the Polish side,
Can we put the splinters back again?

Eliezer Geller made good his bold flight,
Along with all his desperate brave comrades,
The fighter Aaron Carmi also made
The tunnel journey to the Aryan side.

‘We made a plan, informed our Polish allies,
One by one we squirmed the tunnel’s length,
Then helped each other ascend into the night,
We expected Polish rebels, well-armed men…

‘A truck to take us to the forest,
Oh, smell that air and feed our starving guts!
But surfacing into the misty night,
We found not a bloody soul in sight!’

So back and forth and always back and forth
The fighters went, the guide returned to fetch
Remaining Jews who crawled through the sewer’s stench,
Dreaming of life after living so long with death.

So tiring, dangerous and difficult to find,
The tunnel rose and fell, split up, which way?
One tunnel leads out to the outer world,
The others, ancient sewers lead to dismay.

Alas, too late the rescue mission starts,
A day too late for Mila Eighteen’s guests,
For they themselves had made their peace with God,
But we must save the fighters that are left.

So now again within the stifling tunnel,
More desperate bodies clawed and groped their way,
But now the sun is rising, informer’s eyes
Are watching, hoping to nail some Jews this day!

At last the rebels found the tunnel’s end,
Breathed deep, replaced the cover on the wound,
A Polish passer-by would see black faces,
Emerging like demons from the bowels of Hell.

But now the realisation struck them hard,
That fifteen people had been left behind,
Go back, go back, too late, the German guard
Now eagerly watched, and just bided his time.

Watched for the lid to move just like
A hungry cat will stalk the mouse’s hole,
Waiting with sharpened claws to make its strike,
Alas, no one survived, no, not a soul.

So from Warsaw’s four hundred thousand Jews,
Twenty thousand are still alive and hiding,
Honourable Poles help and risk their lives,
God blesses you for every soul surviving…

Joseph Goebbels was indeed amazed,
’These ghetto Jews rebelled, with arms attacked!
Even issue daily military bulletins!
This emphasises what you can expect…

‘From Jews when they have weapons in their hands.
God knows,’ he said, ‘how they obtained these arms.’
Thus spoke the ‘voice’ of the Nazi nation’s man,
For ‘God’ did know only too well the plan.

As God would see the serpent’s wagging tongue,
Stilled two years hence with all his rotten seed,
Poisoned by his own venom, the crippled beast
Was torched, but even fire resisted the doubtful feast.

The Warsaw governor, Dr Ludwig Fischer,
How came he by that doctorate we ask?
Did he tear it from a suckling babe,
Or rip it from the stomach of an ape?

How can a Nazi dog bear such a title
When preaching murder, violence and hate?
Inspiring the Polish population to kill
Any Jew they see who has escaped.

Obergruppenführer Dr Kaltenbrunner,
In Krakow May thirty-first, nineteen forty-three,
Asks, ‘Why this preoccupation with the Jews?
The foreign press believe that Nazis stink!

‘Is this a noble attribute you think,
That the German nation is seen as cruel,
Killing innocent people because they think
In a different way to us in school?’

But the ghetto’s uprising uprose the hearts
And minds of men and women everywhere,
Survivors, prisoners, those in concentration camps,
In east and west became one fighting band.

Treblinka next, the German slaughterhouse,
The factory of death, its proudest mark,
Run with grim Deutschland efficiency,
The gas chambers, your bloodstained coat of arms!

But now inspired, Jews rose against their killers,
Destroyed the camp, and wrecked their damned machines,
No more the image of the passive Jew,
Now the transformation shall begin, anew!

No more, no more the passive pious one…
Since evil breeds where it can feel no fear,
And preys on those who turn the other cheek,
So die a hero’s death, not of the meek!

Resist, always resist, defend your lives,
For there will always be insane regimes,
Where morality and justice fly,
And murder ensures a place in paradise.

For all those who fell, the many millions dead,
For all those brutally slaughtered in cold blood,
The heroes who tragically died so we may live,
We bless your souls, and each hair on your heads.

We bless you with everything we have,
Our tears, our blood, our prayers, our hearts,
For you showed us the way to be a human,
Brave, courageous, honourable and ever a part…

Of history’s great legends, when the few
Did stand firm as a rock, cower no more,
So Warsaw heroes rest in blessed peace,
Your stars shine bright for ever and for ever more!

When the war was over, nobody could recognise even one street in the ghetto, but a hole was indeed found where Mila 18 once stood; they took a great black stone and placed it in the space where there was once the house. In three languages was written: Here on May 8th, 1943, Mordecai Anielewicz, commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, together with dozens of his fighters fell in the campaign against the Nazi enemy. He was 24.