Dolye mayne, dolye [My Fate]

Yom HaShoah traditionally follows Passover, although it was Erev (eve of) Pesach that the Germans started their liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto (figuring the residents would all be at seder and have their guard down). Itsik Manger (1901-1969) was known as a troubadour who typically coupled a deceptively simple folk ballad surface with deep and complex poetry. Manger conveys the elements of his story by shifting the narrator’s vantage point. The first verse is like a birds’ eye view (“Over the ruins of Poland lies a head with blond hair”). In the second verse, the view is still outside, but is personal (“Under the ruins of Poland I feel pain seeing the head of my girl”). In the third verse (“Pain sits at my writing table and writes a long letter”), we are hearing the poet’s soul in anguish. The fourth verse brings in the image of a funeral bird, while the last verse reflects on what the bird represents to the narrator, taking the image of the bird out of the context of time.