God Hid His Face

Reyzl Zychlinsky

1948

All roads led to death,
Every road.
All winds breathed betrayal,
Every wind.
In every doorway, vicious dogs barked,
In all the doorways.
All the waters laughed at us,
All the waters.
Every night grew greasy with our fear,
Every night.
And the heavens were naked and empty,
All the heavens.
And God hid his face.

Translated by
Kathryn
Hellerstein
.
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Creator Bio

Reyzl Zychlinsky

1910–2001

Born in Gombin, Poland, Reyzl Zychlinsky began her poetic career in 1928 and flourished through the 1930s, mentored by Itsik Manger and Melekh Ravitch. She moved to Warsaw and eventually escaped the Nazi occupation in 1940, marrying the psychiatrist Isaac Kanter a year later and surviving the war in the Soviet Union. With her family murdered at Chelmno, Zychlinsky moved to France and later, in 1951, to the United States. She received the Manger Prize for Yiddish Literature in 1975.

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