Creator Bio
Leah Rudnitsky
1916–1943
Yiddish poet Leah Rudnitsky was born in Kalwarija, Lithuania, lived in Kovne (Kaunas), and settled in 1939 in Vilna, where she worked in Yiddish journalism. Ultimately confined to the Vilna ghetto, Rudnitsky wrote poems reflecting the grim circumstances of Jews living under Nazi persecution; she was also a partisan. Her most famous poem, “Dremlen feygl” (Birds Are Drowsing) commemorates the death of Jews slaughtered at Ponary forest, outside Vilna. Rudnitsky perished, possibly in the camp at Majdanek.
Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator
Primary Source
Birds Are Drowsing
Birds are drowsing on the branches.
Sleep, my darling child.
At your cradle, in the field,
A stranger sits and sings.
Once you had another cradle
Woven out of joy.
And your mother, oh your mother
W…