God Hid His Face
Selected Poems of RAJZEL ZYCHLINSKY
 
The Silent Partner

Three meters wide, 
six meters deep, 
and fifteen meters long – 
these are the measurements of one of the pits 
in Poland 
to which the Germans drove Jews, 
shot them there, 
and buried them. 
Three meters wide, 
six meters deep, 
and fifteen meters long – 
the three dimensions. 
And the fourth dimension, 
the one in which all the slaughtered Jews 
cannot die 
and cannot live 
is now the silent partner 
to all the days of my life.
 

Translated by Aaron Kramer 

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