This is a poem that Błażej Krukowski and I have translated from Katarzyna Świdurska's collection titled Blichtr. I was impelled towards this simple yet powerful piece by virtue of the curious kinship of the Polish text I could not understand with Russian, my mother tongue. I reproduce Świdurska's poem below.
As coincidence has it, I had also written a poem on a similar subject in 1999—"Verhandlungsangebot zur Tyrannei"—a poem that dealt with similar issues and feelings.
Pathetic dance macabre
They danced on precipice
Where god’s prayer
Only an empty echo was
Danced to Satan’s beat
Believing in "Arbeit macht frei"
Measured hours with cyclones
And the walls went lame
When the little god died
From his poison
They did not know where lies
The boundary, where evil ends
And where it begins
When the planks
The wretched conductor scratched
They saw that he was a very bad
Father
Since then there rests the stamp of hate
Upon the name
adolf
Żałosny dance macabre
Tańczyli na przepaści
Gdzie boska modlitwa
Tylko pustym echem była
Tańczyli w rytm szatana
W „arbeit macht frei” wierząc
Odmierzali godziny cyklonem
I ściany stały się kalekami
Kiedy bożek zginął
Od swej trucizny
Nie wiedzieli, gdzie istnieje
Granica, gdzie się zło kończy
A gdzie zaczyna
Kiedy skrobał deski
Dyrygent żałosny
Zrozumieli, że był bardzo złym
Ojcem
Odtąd widnieje pieczęć nienawiści
Nad imieniem
adolf