The Little Smuggler

Henryka Łazowertówna

1942

Over the wall, through holes, and past the guard,
Through the wires, ruins, and fences.
Plucky, hungry, and determined
I sneak through, dart like a cat.
At noon, at night, at dawn,
In snowstorm, cold or heat,
A hundred times I risk my life
And put my head on the line.
Under my arm a gunny sack,
Tatters on my back,
On nimble young feet,
With…
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Creator Bio

Henryka Łazowertówna

1910–1942

Born in Warsaw, Henryka Łazowertówna belonged to the new wave of Polish poetry that arose in the immediate aftermath of World War I. Employed by the Jewish Social Self-Help Organization in the Warsaw ghetto, she was an active contributor to the Oyneg Shabes archive. Łazowertówna is best known for “The Little Smuggler,” a poem she wrote in the ghetto. The words are inscribed in Polish, English, and Hebrew on Warsaw’s Memorial to the Child Victims of the Holocaust. She was deported to Treblinka in 1942.

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