Sample Sources
The sources below are those contained in our three curated collections—covering themes of Passover, Gender Roles, and Holocaust Resistance. They represent a fraction of the thousands of sources that will be available when the full site launches in 2024.
Old Women
Aged woolen women, like old siddurim—moldy, mossy
Bound in coarse canvas;
Pointless bellies dangling after them like empty sacks,
Dried-out breasts, like horseradish roots, swaying back and forth.…
Red Evenings
Into its own gold, the evening melted.
Bullet laughed midair across to bullet.
Colossal city fought with city, giants—
The sky disintegrated in red fragments.
Hatless, soldiers fly across the…
Poem
Who cares if eternity won’t know me,
if no one ever watches my footsteps—
but now, right now, when hearts are burning,
I come with fists in my song.
Of course I’d like to sing myself away,
to cry…
Song of the Yellow Patch
How does it look, the yellow patch
With a red or black Star-of-David
On the arm of a Jew in Naziland—
Against the white ground of a December snow?
How would it look, a yellow patch
With a red or…
To Be Said at the Seder
Over and over, when the wayside dust had grayed us,
And we came and knocked at another’s door,
He threatened us with his fist and gainsaid us:
This is not your place! Move on!
Over and over.
Over…
Good Night, World
Good night, wide world.
Big, stinking world.
Not you, but I, slam the gate.
In my long robe,
With my flaming, yellow patch,
With my proud gait,
At my own command—
I return to the ghetto.
Wipe out…
The National Being and the Jewish Community
[ . . . ] If against the assimilationist the American spirit affirms the right to be different, against the segregationist it affirms the right of free association of the different with one another…
Oyneg Shabes Archive
Everyone appreciated the importance of the work that was being done. They understood how important it was for future generations that a record remain of the tragedy of Polish Jewry. Some realized that…
The Eastern European Era in Jewish History
We Jews, the first nation in the world that began not only to mark but also to appraise and to judge the generations, evaluate eras on the basis of different criteria, namely, how much refinement is…
In These Nightmarish Days
Here you have him, the proud Jew. The Jew who ruled his kingdom with a high hand in complete despotism: here is the Jew who never heeded anyone’s advice, who did everything with his own hand and…
Journal, 1935–1944: The Fascist Years
I am beginning to get used to the years of war. We seem to struggle through the same journey from first of January to first of January, in a nightmare that is itself beginning…
Non omnis moriar
“Even if you kill us, we will leave traces,” insists the poet. Poems such as this one affirm the power of humanity even in the midst of atrocities committed by neighbors.