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HIGHLIGHTS

Between the Shadows: New and Selected Works
by Herman Taube

Theodor D. Adorno once remarked, "To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric." Nevertheless, a copious amount of literary activity has taken place in the years since the Holocaust, as writers struggle to communicate the incomprehensible. Survivors in particular have taken up this struggle, creating poetry to chronicle the stories of a decimated culture and people, to bear witness to a tragic and horrific period in modern history, to make the world remember. One of these poets is Herman Taube.

Orphaned as a small child and raised by a grandfather later killed in Lodz, Taube knew too well the cruelties of loss and death. As a soldier in the Polish Army during World War II, he witnessed and felt the fear, pain, and suffering of his fellow Jewish refugees. In this volume of new and selected works, Taube intersperses his World War II travels in Poland as a Red Cross medic with his journeys back to Poland many years later and the painful memories those visits evoked. Taube reminisces on the brutality of war and the lunacy of the men who instigate war. He aches over the loss of his family and friends, the places and dreams of his youth. In "My Girlfriend" he imagines a childhood girlfriend's death while in the showers at Majdanek:

Entering the shower chamber
I imagined that you were there with me.
My lungs burst, I suffocated.

Taube also speaks of the survivors, including himself, and the aftermath of surviving - the nightmares, questions and doubts - and the dilemma between bearing witness to the past, or remaining silent to protect oneself against the memories. In "California Condors," Taube compares Holocaust survivors to that rare and unusual bird:

We are an extinct, scarce tribe,
like the California Condor, few
of us are left in this world.
No one cares about our survival,
some would prefer if we vanish.

Taube goes on to describe with a mixture of awe and pride the whole span of Jewish life and experience. He writes of a sustainable Jewish faith alongside his own religious doubts, and he writes about Israel, his family, and the sublime simplicity of ordinary things. But he returns to the theme of the Holocaust to end the book, closing the volume with a memoriam to his friend, Brachale, who perished at Chelmno. This narrative, along with his opening poem, "Poland," frames the collection, reminding the reader of the loss that, for a survivor, begins and ends all things.

261 pages
ISBN: 0-931848-72-5
Call no: PS 3570 .A86 B4 1986

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Journey Back
Poland	3
Evacuation	5
Evacuation -- II	7
Cherniachow	9
Never Again Will I Blame God	11
A Soldier and a Dog	12
Vodka	14
Last Hour in Majdanek	16
Monuments	19
Warsaw	20
Warsaw	21
The Stone	22
Suitcases...	24
Avremel the Tailor	25
Yankel Wassertreger	27
A Single Hair	28
Rabbi Moses Isserles O'H	31
Rabbi Yehudah Ajzenberg Z''L	33
On a Journey Back Home	35
Henoch...	36
My Girlfriend...	38
Way Home	40
Zawadzka 29,	41
The Messiah Came to Europe	43
The Chosen People	44
The Struma	45
Numbers	46
A Lonely Bird	48

Darkest Light
Letter to a Poet	51
Together	52
Silence	53
Hilda Thieberger	54
Contradiction	55
The Only Jew in Town	57
Encounter with a Rocking Chair	59
March 10,	60
A Survivor's Husband	61
Visiting a Home in Sao Paulo	63
Letter to a Survivor	65
On Vacation	66
California Condors	67
Encounter with a Friend	68
Insects Won the Battle	70
Self Portrait	71
I Am a Poet	73
The Centerpiece	74
Sadness Looks from Your Face	75
Abraham Sutzkever	77
Janusz Korchak	79
Your Junk Man	81
Images	82
To the Image in the Mirror	84
Two Stones	88
A Fourteenth Street Personage	90
Holes in a Pot	91
Yoachimowicz	92
Who Am I?	93
To Judy	95
Confidence	96
Spring	97
Zechariah Came to Brooklyn...	98
I Am a Dandelion	100

Living Shadows
Tashlich	105
Nei'lah	106
Yom Kippur Eve in a Temple	108
A Visit to A Friend's Sukkah	110
Hoshana Rabba	112
On the Other Hand	114
Yiddish	116
Maoz Tzur	118
Monologue by a Lonely Man...	119
I Feel Guilty...	120
What is Torah?	121
Playing Games	123
A Common Man in Search of G-d	124
From Doubt to Faith	127
Friday Sunset	128
A Vision	129
A Prayer	130
Realization	131
Chrabost-Courage!	132
Teachers	135
Poetic Notes	136

Mirror of Memory
The Grocer on Warner Street	141
Corner Myrtle and Lafayette	142
Rainbow	143
On Memorial Day	145
Deferred Poems	147
After the Storm	149
On a Foggy Day	151
Fall...	152
A Perception of Human Nothingness	153
One Day	154
Lunchtime in the Capital City	156
Too Busy	157
To the Readers	158
A Visitor	159
Grandfather	160
At Sixty Six	161
To Aaron	162
Rainstorm	163
The Dove	165
To My Children	167
My Grandfather's View...	169
Waiting	170
Death	171
Contrast	172
On the S.S. Rotterdam	173
Marriage	174
Lean Days...	175
My Yard	176
We Are Cowards	177
At Babi Yar	178
Taking Chances	179
November Winds...	180
A Sign of Spring	181

Journey Ahead
The World Gathering	185
On an Ancient Road	187
To Jerusalem	188
Jerusalem Sabbath	190
The Crowd is Ours, This Place is Mine...	193
The Wall	195
World Gathering Last Night at the Wall	197
Elie Wiesel Speaks	199
After the World Gathering	201
Hebron Bus Stop	204
Mea Shearim	205
At the Foot of Mount Gilboa	207
Sinai Dreams...	208
On the Golan Heights...	210
On the Other Side of Sambatyon	212
Second Class Citizens?	213
From Warsaw to Masada	214
Coexistence	215
Rav Turai Karl	217
The Sabbath After Auschwitz...	218
Tisha B'Av in Jerusalem	220
Kibbutz Gonen	221
Safed	223
Facing Kunetra	225
From Hell to Hope	226
Shehecheyanu	227

Brachale	229