Wladyslaw Szlengel - Poet of the Warsaw Ghetto

                      Poem: A Small  Station called Treblinka 

                                                 

                                               

Warsaw Ghetto: Zelaznej Bramy (Iron Gate) Square , ghetto wall and Lubomirski palace

Walyslaw Szlengel was born in Warsaw, between 1911-1914, the exact date is disputed. He is most known for using poetry to chronicle the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

Writing poetry at an early age, Szlengel was already published in literary journals in 1930. It was not long before he was also writing songs and directing cabaret performances, solely in Polish. Some sources maintain that his father, who died in 1934, was a theatre director. Szlengel spent a few months towards the end of 1939 until the early part of 1940 in the town of Bialystock, which was in the Soviet occupied part of Poland but returned to Walicow Street, Warsaw, which  in November 1940 was incorporated into the notorious Warsaw Ghetto.

The Warsaw Ghetto was the area where all Jews of the City were confined behind barbed wire fences and high walls as from November 1940. Jews from other parts of Poland and from Germany, along with Roma people were moved there with as many as 400,000 people being held there . Overcrowded accommodation, wretched conditions, with only an entitlement to starvation rations, as many as ten per cent of the population perished. Random killings by the Germans, public executions of those who fell foul of regulations, the sight of  inhabitants expiring from illness or starvation,  increased the terror and sense of despair.  On 22nd July 1942,  deportations by train began-supposedly on the grounds of 'resettlement; in the east - but the actual destination was the death camp at Treblinka, around fifty miles north-east of Warsaw. As many as 6,000 people could be moved out in a day.

 Szlengel carried on writing, and performing, managing to secure  regular employment at the  coffeehouse Cafe Sztuka in Lesno Street 2 .  Vladyzslaw Szpilman accompanied various artists on piano including the popular singer Wiera Gran.  Cafe Sztuka is portrayed in Ronan Polanski's 2002 film about Szpillman- 'The Pianist' . The weekly Cabaret night 'Life Journal' was organised by Szlengel and where possible satire was encouraged at the expense of the authorities. It seems that Szlengel was using both Polish and Yiddish by this point. However in Polanski's film, the subversive nature of the cabaret at Cafe Sztuka is missed, and one gets an impression of Jews who had money enjoying themselves in the Cafe, being supposedly  oblivious to the suffering of the wider community. Cafe Sztuka was closed, most likely between 19th-22nd of July 1942.

 Wladyslaw Szlengel and his wife were forced to work in a brush factory, but carried on organising literary evenings, and presenting further poetry   The Ghetto population was gradually reducing due to deportation though the Nazis were prepared to leave 'productive' Jews working. In October 1942 Jewish Resistance groups merged together to form the organisation ZOB. Word reached them that the trains were in fact going to Treblinka , a death camp.

 Having the Warsaw Ghetto largely full of younger and physically stronger people, who had no illusions of the dangers they were in, stimulated a number of skirmishes with Germans and those collaborating with them as from January 1943. When the Germans arrived to organise a final mass deportation resistance culminated in the magnificent  Warsaw Ghetto Uprising that begun on 19th April 1943 and lasted until 10th May 1943. Wladyslaw Szlengel and his wife were shot by Germans when the house they were hiding in was stormed on 8th May 1943.

Though the Uprising was facing impossible odds, it is generally regarded as both an act of great  heroism and defiance but also for inspiring the 1944 Warsaw Rising, showing that the Germans were by no means invincible and could be confronted.

I am pleased to be able to reproduce the  Waldysaw Szlengel  poem 'A Small Station Called Treblinka', reproduced here by kind permission of Halina Birenbaum     from the website http://www.zchor.org which features a selection of his work in different languages on the site  Szlengel webpage 

What makes the poem quite haunting is that it is written in the present tense, and though the station itself seems unremarkable, one can never purchase a return ticket. It is not known how widely circulated the poem was, but certainly resistance workers with in the Ghetto were issuing proclamations desperately trying to warn the remaining populace of the dangers they were in.

                                                 Władysław Szlengel

                                                'A Small Station Called Treblinka'

                                               On the line between Tluszcz and Warsaw
                                               From the railway station Warsaw - East
                                               You get out of the station
                                               and travel straight…

                                              The journey lasts
                                              sometimes 5 hours and 45 minutes more
                                              and sometimes the same journey lasts
                                              a whole life until your death …

                                              And the station is very small
                                              three fir trees grow there
                                              and a regular signboard saying
                                              here is the small station of Treblinka...
                                              here is the small station of Treblinka...

                                              And not even a cashier
                                              gone is the cargo man
                                             and for a million zloty
                                             you will not get a return ticket

                                             And nobody waits for you in the station
                                             and nobody waves a handkerchief towards you
                                             only silence hung there in the air
                                             to welcome you in the blind wilderness.

                                            And silent are the three fir trees
                                            and silent is the black board
                                            because here is the small station of Treblinka...
                                            here is the small station of Treblinka...

                                            And only a commercial board
                                            stands still:
                                           "Cook only by gas"

* Translated from Polish to Hebrew by Halina Birenbaum and from Hebrew to English by AdaHoltzman. Yehuda Poliker, son of an Auschwitz Holocaust survivor from Thessalonika, wrote music to the poem and it is featured  on his album: "Ashes and Dust"

On 2nd August 1943, a rebellion broke out at Treblinka itself, when a number of prisoners raided the armoury and organised a mass breakout. The Germans began to start dismantling Treblinka in the Autumn of 1943, and it had virtually fallen into disuse by the time the Red Army took the district in July 1944. Another reason to read the poem to ensure that the horror of  Treblinka is remembered, along with Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the mass breakout at Treblinka itself.



Sources

 Wladyslaw Slegel- The Ghetto Poet

Culture.PL -Polish Cultural website

The Manhatten Review

Background information on the Warsaw Ghetto by one of the Uprising's leading participants, Marek Edelman can be found here

General News 

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