The
Pogrom
The song is
endless, and its melody is eerie. The heart grieves on hearing its distant
wail roaring through the misty night. The song is old, very old,
but it is always new, and upsets ever again. One wishes to put an end to it, like to a bad
dream, or a bird of ill omen. One
longs and hopes that the song will disappear forever – without reverberation,
and without an echo…
If only we could
get some quiet on the snow-covered moors, on the scorching-hot plains, in the
tormented villages, in the feverish lanes and
in the wretched huts. –
If only we could
get some quiet! Oh yes, certainly, it will be quiet. When the
hidden fury will be unleashed, together with lunacy its treacherous companion,
and it will trek through the narrow village lanes, and will sound its deafening
and poisonous laughter. Then there will be deathly quiet! An invisible but powerful hand will pull the
strings, when a savage and coldly calculating eye will provoke and agitate and
give the signal to start – then it will be quiet, deathly quiet!
Smoke will arise
from the wreckage. The infant will lie crushed at the breast of its
mother, and the bones of the men will be in ashes. Silence and poverty
will hang over the graveyards. And
the blue skies will illuminate the silence of death…
And then the
mysterious power that had been feeding so ravenously on the spilled blood,
will relax at last. But only for a
brief moment. Because the power that has forged the chains and shackles
for humanity, is founded on clay and requires blood and marrow in order not to
collapse. - - -
And when will
the Pogrom end? - It will end when through tireless struggle for
truth and justice, that demonic power will be smashed and at our feet. –
Then you will
arise, you suffering world!
J.
Raphael, Jüdische Freie Presse Köln, 5 January
1921. Vol. 1, No. 2
Translated by
Zeev Raphael, July 2007