Over Babi Yar there are no monuments.
The steep precipice is like a crude gravestone.
I am terrified.
I am as old today
As all Jewish people.
Now I imagine that I’m a Jew.
Here I wander through ancient Egypt.
And here, on the cross, crucified, I perish.
And still I have on me the marks of the nails.
I imagine myself to be Dreyfus.
The Philistine – my informer and judge.
I am behind bars. I am surrounded.
Persecuted, spat on, slandered.
And dainty ladies in Brussels frills,
Squealing, poke their parasols into my face.
I imagine myself the boy from Belostok.
Blood flows, running over the floors.
The rabble-rousers in the tavern commit their outrages
Reeking of vodka and onions, half and half.
Kicked by a boot, I lie helpless.
In vain I plead with the pogrom-makers.
Accompanied by jeers: “Beat the Yids, save Russia!”
A grain merchant batters my mother.
O my Russian people, I know you
Are innately international
But often those whose hands were vile
In vain used your purest name.
I know the goodness of my land.
What base lowness – without a quiver of a vein
The anti-Semites proclaimed themselves
“The Union of the Russian People!”
I imagine myself as Anne Frank,
Transparent as a sprig in April,
And I love, and have no need for phrases,
But I do need for us to gaze into each other.
How little one can see, or smell!
Leaves – we cannot have,
Sky – we cannot have,
But there is so much we can have –
To embrace tenderly in a darkened room.
“They’re coming!”
“Don’t be afraid, those are the booming sounds
Of Spring itself. It’s coming here.
Come to me,
Quickly, give me your lips!”
“They’re breaking the door!”
“No, it’s the ice breaking…”
Over Babi Yar the wild grasses rustle.
The trees look sternly as if in judgement.
Here everything screams silently and, taking off my hat
I feel I am slowly turning grey.
And I myself am one long soundless cry.
Above the thousand thousands buried here.
I am every old man here shot dead.
I am every child here shot dead.
Nothing in me will ever forget this.
The “Internationale” – let it thunder
When forever will be buried
The last of the anti-Semites on earth.
There is no Jewish blood in mine,
But I am adamantly hated
By all anti-Semites as if I were a Jew.
That is why I am a true Russian!

Nad Babim Yarom pamyatnikov nyet.
Krutoi obryv, kak gruboye nadgrobye.
Mne strashno.
Mne sevodnya stolko let,
Kak samomu yevreiskomu narodu.
Mne kazhetsya seichas – ya iudei.
vot ya bredu po drevnemu Egiptu.
A vot ya, na kreste raspyati, gibnu.
I do sikh por na mne – sledy gvozdei.
Mne kazhestya, shot Dreifus – eto ya.
Meshchanstvo – moi donoschik i sudya.
Ya za reshotkoi. Ya popal v koltso,
Zatravlennyi, oplyovannyi, obolgannyi,
I admochki s bryusselskimi oborkami,
Vizzha, zontami tychut mne v litso.
Mne kahzetsya, ya – malchik v Belostoke.
Krov lyotsya, rastekayas po polam,
Beschinstvuyut vozhdi traktimoi stoiki
I pakhnut vodkoi s lukom popolam.
Ya sapogom otbroshennyi, bessilnyi.
Naprasno ya pogromshchikov moyu.
Pod gogot: “Bei zhidov, spasai Rossiyu!”
Labaznik izbiyavet mat moyu.
O russki moi narod, ya znayu ty
Po sushchnosti internazionalen.
No chasto te, chi ruki nechisty
Tvoim chiteishim imenem bryatsali.
Ya znayu dobrotu moyei zemli.
Kak podlo, shto i zhilochkoi ne drognuv.
Antisemity narekli sebya
“Soyuzom Russkovo Naroda!”
Mne kazhetsya ya – eto Anna Frank,
Prozrachnaya, kak vetochka v aprele,
I ya lyublyu, i mne ne nado fraz,
No nado, shtob drug v druga my smotreli.
Kak malo mozhno videt, obonyat!
Nelzya nam listyev
I nelzya nam neba,
No mozhno ochen mnogo – eto nezhno
Drug druga v tyomnoi komnate obnyat.
“Syuda idut!”
“Ne bosa, eto guly
Samoy vesny. Ona syuda idyot.
Idi ko mne,
Dai mne skoreye guby!”
“Lomayut dver!”
“Nyet, eto ledokhod…”
Nad Babim Yarom shelest dikikh trav,
Derevya smotryat grozno, po-sudeiski.
Zdes molcha vsyo krichit, i, shapku snyav,
Ya chuvstvuyu, kak medlenno sedeyu.
I sam ya, kak sploshnoi bezzvuchnyi krik,
Nad tysyachami tysyach pogrebyonnykh.
Ya – kazhdyi zdes rasstrelyanni starik.
Ya – kazhdyi zdes rasstrelyanni rebyonok.
Nichto vo mne pro eto ne zabudet.
“Internatsional” pust progremit.
Kogda naveki pokhoronen budet
Posledni na zemle antisemit.
Yevreiskoi krovi nyet v krovi moyei,
No nenavisten zloboi zaskoruzloi
Ya vsem antisemitam, kak yevrei.
I potomu ya – nastoyashchi russki!