Itzhak Katzenelson’s Dos lid fun oysgehargetn yidishn folk in Translation: The First Four Decades

In this article we sketch the history of Katzenelson’s lament Dos lid fun oysgehargetn yidishn folk in translation, from the publication of the Yiddish original in 1945 to the fall of the Berlin Wall. We first present Katzenelson’s ‘testament’—a letter to his relatives Berl Katznelson and Yitzhak Tabenkin, important Labour politicians in Eretz Israel—which expresses the poet’s hopes concerning the publication and translation of the Lament after the war. Subsequently, we discuss the translations of the poem, highlighting the involvement of the Ghetto Fighters’ House.