Auschwitz by Leon Felipe translation by Ernesto Villalobos

by | Apr 2, 2020 | Articles

The first time I made this post, I was desolate because Trumpo was taking children away from their parents and putting them in cages. Now we are in the middle of a pandemic, the coronavirus that is taking parents away from their grown children. In the middle of this tragedy, petty, pathetically insecure Trumpo fires the Inspector General because he made the whistleblower known (at this time when a person is dying in New York every seven minutes) and has a captain relieved of his duties because he wanted to save the 4000 sailors under his command. What did we ever do to deserve this tragic and bitterly sad time?

What I wrote then still applies so I’ll leave it in. Something tells me that this is not the last time I’ll be adding to this story.

 
Leon Felipe’s poem Auschwitz might be a stretch because so many of my readers do not read or speak Spanish and might wonder why I am posting this. Please bear with me. Seeing children being held in cages at the border was the latest straw to break a camel’s back. We Latinos are being persecuted in the United States right now. Witnessing the crumbling ethical standards, evident lack of social conscience, and outright corruption of the Republican-led Congress has demoralized, depressed, and disgusted me. I needed something that would express everything I’ve been feeling and thought of this poem.
 
 
I had the good fortune to meet Spanish poet Leon Felipe shortly before he passed away and listened to him recite this marvelous poem and shared it with my good friend, Ernesto Villalobos who was so moved that he translated it brilliantly in ONE day. I hope that you can relate to it.

AUSCHWITZ (ca. 1950)
by León Felipe
Born: April 11, 1884, Tábara, Spain
Died: September 18, 1968, México City, México
Translation: Ernesto Villalobos

(To all the Jews of the world. My friends. My brethren)

Those Infernal Poets,
Dante, Blake, Rimbaud…
Speak softly now…
Play softer still…
Be quiet!

Today,
any inhabitant of this Earth
understands much more about hell
than those three poets put together.

I know Dante was a gifted violinist…
Ah, the great virtuoso!

But don’t try to frighten now
with your wonderful tercets
and perfect hendecasyllables
that Jewish boy standing there,
pried from his parents…all alone.
Alone!
Waiting in line
at the Auschwitz chambers.

Dante… you descended to Hell by the hand of Virgil
(Ah Virgil, the “Great Cicerone”)
and that “Divine Comedy” of yours…
what an amusing adventure of music and tourism!

This….this is something else…
Something else…

How can I explain, if you have no imagination!?
You… have no imagination.

Remember how in your “inferno” there was not a single child?
But that one over there…He is all alone.
Alone! Without a cicerone…
Waiting for the gates of hell to swing wide open.
A Hell that you, poor Florentine, could never fathom.

This… this is something else…
How can I explain?
In a place like this, you cannot play the violin.
Here… all the strings, of every violin in the world, have broken.

Do you understand now, Infernal Poets?
Virgil, Dante, Blake, Rimbaud…
Speak softly now!
Play your instruments softer still!
Shhhh!… Be quiet!!

I too, am a great virtuoso
and have played in Hell many times…

But now, here…
I smash my fiddle… and shut up.