The Last Lullaby: Poetry from the Holocaust

The Last Lullaby is the culmination of Aaron Kramer's fifty years devoted to translating poetry spawned by the Holocaust. The full horror of the genocide and the sublime spirit of those who resisted are given voice on these pages. These poets -- originally writing in Yiddish -- speak from the ghettos, way-stations, death camps, and partisan forests.Placing each group in its historic and literary content with comprehensive introductory essays, Professor Kramer presents works mostly unavailable in English -- until now. For the very first time, readers can become familiar with poets who experienced the horrors of the ghettos and the death camps and survived: Soviet poets; American poets who were forever transformed by the Holocaust. Kramer also introduces the 1944 Terezin opera Der Kaiser yon Atlantis.The Last Lullaby is a testament to the richness of a half-annihilated language that, in the pain of its survivors, was made more beautiful than ever before. Unlike most other current translators, Kramer insists on maintaining the music of the original Yiddish, the often folkish cadence and rhyme which, he believes, are a precious part of these poems' legacy.