WEBVTT

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Now, again a poem translated
by Renata Gorczynski

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and Benjamin Ivry.

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The title is "Watching Show
in a Hotel Room in America."

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You know of course
what show is this.

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It is another name
for Holocaust,

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and a show is also a documentary
film made on Holocaust.

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Though some nights have the
texture of a newborn cold,

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we prefer to play
chess or cards.

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Here the hotel guests are
singing happy birthday to you

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while the one-eighth TV set
is coolly shuffling pictures.

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The trees of my childhood
have crossed the ocean

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and greet me dryly
from the screen.

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Polish peasants engage in a
theological dispute with Jesuit

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zest, and only the Jews keep
silent exhausted by slow dying.

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The streams of my
youth flow cautiously

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through the unfamiliar
distant continent.

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Hay wagons are
carrying human hair,

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and their exhales squeak
beneath the airy weight.

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"We are innocent,"
declare the Pines.

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The SS officers have turned
into brittle old men,

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and doctors fight to
save their hearts,

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and lives, and conscience.

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It is getting late.

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I sense the scheming
wave of drowsiness.

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I want to go to bed,
but the hotel guests

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shout happy birthday to you
even louder, much louder

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than the dying Jews.

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Big trucks carry the
stars from the firmament.

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Trains ride with
melancholy in the rain.

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"I am innocent," apologizes
muttered, and only the Aspen

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trembles as usual ready
to admit to any crime.

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"Where is my home," the
Czechoslovakian Jews sing.

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There is no home.

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Houses are burning.

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The cold gas whistles inside.

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I am more and more
sleepy and innocent.

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The TV set is reassuring both
of us are beyond suspicion.

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The birthday party
reverberates with hoorays.

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The shoes of Auschwitz
piled into a pyramid that

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reaches the sky groan faintly.

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Alas, we have outlived mankind.

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And now, let us sleep.

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Let us sleep.

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We have no place to go.

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