We Refugees Archive

Das Lied von den Sälen

Warum stürmen wir nicht in die Säle hinein

in London, in Genf, auf der übrigen Welt?

Die Portale sind gross – und wir sind sehr klein.

Etwas lebt, was die Tore verschlossen hält:

ein Geist aus Eisen im Panzer aus Stahl

und außerdem schwarzweiss befrackt –

ein Geist unter brennendem Feuerfanal;

er schlägt den Herzen, die zucken in Qual,

einen tausendmotorigen Takt.

Er sitzt in den Räten und lächelt diskret,

gibt Banketts und berät und ernennt

und setzt ab und berät und signiert und berät

und vertagt — und die Erde brennt.

Er reibt sich die Hände und wärmt an der Glut

sich verstohlen; sie Säle sind kalt,

weil Leichen drin sitzen mit eisigem Blut

und beträchtlichem Monatsgehalt.

Sie neigen, verbeugen sich – „Was sagten Sie?

Kanonen? Geschwader? O nein!

Das ist nichts weiter als Industrie,

die muss doch beschäftigt sein.

Wir wollen doch alle den Frieden, nicht wahr?

Also lassen Sie uns überlegen:

Ja, sehn Sie, nur Sie sind für uns die Gefahr.

Wir rüsten nur Ihretwegen.

Nur so ein bisschen – Sie werden verstehn –

Wir wollen ja Frieden, nichts weiter!

Und wenn wir uns nächstes Mal wiedersehn,

sind wir wieder schon etwas gescheiter …“

Warum stürmen wir nicht in die Säle hinein

in London, in Genf, auf der übrigen Welt,

um unsere Leiden hinauszuschrein,

dass es wie Blitzstrahl ins Dunkle grellt?

Sie hören ja nicht, wenn wir leise sind.

Sie hören auch nicht, wenn wir brüllen …

Wir: du und ich und der Greis und das Kind

und die die menschlichen Schlachthöfe füllen.

Warum stürmen wir nicht in die Säle hinein,

in die Kälte des Schweinwerferlichts:

„Wir wollen doch Menschen nur, Menschen sein!

Wir wollen nur Frieden, sonst nichts!“

Doch die Prachtportale sind riesengross

Und höhnen uns stählern und stumm.

Bricht keiner denn, keiner die Riegel los?

Wir schaun uns im Kreise um – –

da stehen wir alle, die Stirnen gesenkt:

du so wie ich und der Greis und das Kind.

Und jeder fühlt, was der andere denkt,

und der Blick ist von Tränen blind …

 

We Outside …

Why don’t we storm into the hall

Where the councils meet, in every land?

The portals are huge, and we are very small,

and the doors are barred by a deathly hand:

A respectable ghost in armor and awe

with a tail-coat over ist winding-sheet;

on its blazonry fiery torches flame,

and the tortured and shackled hear its name

in a thousand-motor beat.

It sits at the councils and smiles discreetly,

gives receptions, confers and appoints and delays

and confers and delays and descides, and then neatly

postpones, and confers – And the Earth is ablaze!

But it warms its hands at the smouldering remains:

The enormous halls are cold and gray

with the chill of corpses with icy veins

and considerable monthly pay.

They bow to each other with severity –

„Cannon? Air-fleets? You’re mistaken.

Those are the signs of returning prosperity,

of industry beginning to reawaken.

Peace is the only thing I seek,

with a sidelong glance at you;

If it weren’t for you I’d be very meek –

But when you arm, I arm too.“

 

Why don’t we storm into the halls

Where the councils meet, in every land?

See if your voices shake the walls

To the angry roar of our demand!

They will not hear our wildest cry;

they’re just as deaf as we are mild.

We, whose only use is to die;

We: you and I, the dodderer and the child.

Why don’t we storm the council hall?

Braving that cold and baleful glare.

„It is on us the blow will fall,

we only ask the living’s share.“

But the splendid portals aloofly mock

Our futile rage in steely disdain.

Will nobody, nobody smash the lock?

We look around for hope, in vain.

Here we all stand, unsure, untaught,

you as well as I, the young and the old;

each of us knows the other’s thought,

but weeping will not make us bold.

Hilde Marx (1911-1968) was a German-American poet, writer and journalist. She is one of the authors whose writing career was only just beginning when the National Socialists came to power in Germany in 1933, and was immediately prevented by them. As a Jew, however, she was already affected by anti-Semitism before that. She already experienced what it meant to be Jewish at the Humanist Gymnasium. After graduating from high school in 1931, Hilde Marx began studying journalism, theater and art history in Berlin. After five semesters, however, she was forcibly de-registered, as Jews were no longer allowed to attend universities. While she was still able to publish for newspapers at “Ullstein,” “Mosse” and the “Berliner Tageblatt,” this was no longer possible after their “Aryanization”. She was left only with Jewish publications, such as “Die Monatsblätter des jüdischen Kulturbundes in Deutschland,” “Die Jüdische Revue,” “Das Jüdische Gemeindeblatt,” and above all the “C.V.-Zeitung”. 11“Central Verein-Zeitung. Blätter für Deutschtum und Judentum. Organ des Central-Vereins deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens e.V. Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums.” The CV-newspaper was one of the most important Jewish weekly newspapers in the German-speaking world and appeared from 1922 until it was banned in 1938.

She did not think about emigration for a long time, but when the Gestapo threatened her with imprisonment in a concentration camp in 1937, she fled to the Czech Republic, and from there she managed to leave for the USA a year later. In November 1938 she arrived in New York. She worked in various jobs: as a nurse for the elderly, a saleswoman, a nanny and a gymnastics trainer. However, in addition to these demanding jobs, she also tried to gain a foothold as a writer in the USA. To this end, she asked the American Guild for German Cultural Freedom for help.

The pacifist poem “We Outside,” (German Original: “Das Lied von den Sälen”) was the first that Marx was able to publish in the English translation by Jay Williams in the American magazine “Direction” in May 1940. In it, she describes her helplessness in the face of the political and economic decision-makers who, through lethargy, self-interest, and ignorance, are inciting rather than putting an end to the devastating events of the war.

In 1943 she received American citizenship. In America she continued to perform as a lecture artist, with her own “One woman show” in which she combined serious with light-hearted, Jewish with Christian traditions.

In 1951, a final volume of poems from 1938 to 1951 was published under the title “Bericht,” which incorporated her experiences as an exile. She became a member of Auslands-PEN and, from the 1960s on, was an editor of “Aufbau”, 22“Aufbau”: In 1934, the first “Aufbau. Nachrichtenblatt des German-Jewish Club, Inc., New York” appeared. Initially more a club and advertising organ, the “Aufbau” soon became a news sheet about the everyday life of German (not only Jewish) emigrants in exile. This meant advice on legal matters, explanations of the New York subway system, language courses and job vacancies, tips on dealing with authorities, etc. Oskar Maria Graf and Nelly Sachs, Lion Feuchtwanger and Thomas Mann, Mascha Kaléko and many others wrote here. for which she wrote primarily theater and film reviews, as well as short biographies of Jewish emigrants. She also worked for other newspapers, such as “This Day from St. Louis,” “The Chicago Jewish Forum,” the state newspaper and “Herold from New York”.

Footnotes

• 1“Central Verein-Zeitung. Blätter für Deutschtum und Judentum. Organ des Central-Vereins deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens e.V. Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums.” The CV-newspaper was one of the most important Jewish weekly newspapers in the German-speaking world and appeared from 1922 until it was banned in 1938.
• 2“Aufbau”: In 1934, the first “Aufbau. Nachrichtenblatt des German-Jewish Club, Inc., New York” appeared. Initially more a club and advertising organ, the “Aufbau” soon became a news sheet about the everyday life of German (not only Jewish) emigrants in exile. This meant advice on legal matters, explanations of the New York subway system, language courses and job vacancies, tips on dealing with authorities, etc. Oskar Maria Graf and Nelly Sachs, Lion Feuchtwanger and Thomas Mann, Mascha Kaléko and many others wrote here.

Hilde Marx: “Das Lied von den Sälen”

Englisch translation “We Outside” by Jay Williams, in “Direction”, May 1940, vol. 3, no. 5.

Cover and PDF: Cover of the journal “Direction” from May 1940 with the caricature “Don Quixote” of the painter Judson Briggs. In this volume, Hilde Marx’s poem “We Outside” was published in the English translation by Jay Williams (p. 6).

Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

Deutsches Exilarchiv 1933-1945, Frankfurt am Main.