What I Read to the Dead

Marcel Weyland's translation of poetry and prose by Polish Jewish poet Wladyslaw Szlengel is a landmark in Australian publishing. It is essential in bringing to Australian readers a remarkable voice not only of witness, but also of passionate and committed cultural and spiritual resistance. Nazi persecution of Polish Jews is tracked from before the war through to the horrific destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto. This is a poetry so necessary, so remarkable, that it is painful to read and experience. It should be. Weyland superbly captures the equivocations of Wladyslaw Szlengel's voice, as it moves from the wishful to the ironic, from the playful in the face of persecution and torment, the spirit of a people undimmed no matter the horror they collectively and individually experience, to death-confronting witness. And in doing this, Szlengel never lessens the gravity of the persecution in his telling. Through the poet, the voices of those suffering speak, as if he might have all voices going at once through the meeting-house of his poetry. This is a traumatic documentation in poetry, but one that impels us to consider who we are, and what our responsibilities to each other are. The final piece in the collection is a stunning and deeply disturbing piece of poetic prose that comes from the very edge of death, of murder, on murder. It ends: Read it.This is our history.This is what I read to the dead.