Jump to content

Translation:Passover

From Wikisource
Passover (1943)
by Cemach Feldstein, translated from Yiddish by Wikisource

Published in Geto yedies ("Ghetto News", Vilna Ghetto), April 18, 1943; 13 Nisan, 5703. Republished by David G. Roskies in YIVO-Bleter new serie, 3 (1997), 172-173 (available here). Translated by Rebecca Margolis.

Cemach Feldstein1492477Passover1943Wikisource

We have been granted survival of a second Passover in the imprisonment of the Ghetto. An oddly tragic fate: slavery at the beginning of our history and now again after 3,000 years. That the Jewish people continues to exist is the greatest wonder, but its fate has changed little. This is the awesome, frightful riddle.

Yetsies-mitsraim, the Exodus from Egypt, was a turning point in our history. Liberation first opened the road to independence and to a free life. The people still had to undergo a great wandering and overcome many upheavals and blunders until it established its own foundation, but the exodus from Egypt was the first condition for the existence of the people, for its religious and national unification. Still, in slavery alienation, even an ancient and tried people cannot maintain its national integrity and its moral stance. Slavery and estrangement oppress and disorganize.

We yearn for freedom. This holy word has become so weakened and desecrated in our times. We are truly afraid to use the term. We mean the freedom that includes people living together freely and happily, the freedom to take part in the battle with nature in order to place all of her hidden treasures at the disposal of human civilization. For us, freedom entails equal justice for those who create honorably.

Meanwhile, our existence is very difficult. Our life stands short moments away from not-being. But we still hope for a way out. We hope for a solution for our people to receive equal rights to live and work among the nations.

 This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.

Original:

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was first published outside the United States (and not published in the U.S. within 30 days), and it was first published before 1989 without complying with U.S. copyright formalities (renewal and/or copyright notice) and it was in the public domain in its home country on the URAA date (January 1, 1996 for most countries).


The longest-living author of this work died in 1944, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 79 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse

Translation:

This work is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license, which allows free use, distribution, and creation of derivatives, so long as the license is unchanged and clearly noted, and the original author is attributed.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse