An Angel Against Her Will
Zuzanna Ginczanka (born in 1917 as Zuzanna Gincburg) wrote her first poems at the age of 4. By 14, she had found her mature voice. At 19, she was a rising star in Warsaw’s avant garde.
At 27, she was murdered by the Nazis.
Two years before her death, she narrowly escaped capture by the German police, or “Schupo.” She processed her experience in this remarkable poem.¹
Non omnis moriar — my noble estate,
My fields of tablecloth and expansive sheets,
My steadfast wardrobe bastions, still replete
With pastel-colored dresses will outlive me yet.
I left no successor to inherit these
Jewish things. May your hand then reach,
Mrs. Chomin of Lvov, brave wife of a snitch,
A Volksdeutcher’s² mother, for them if you please.
May they serve you and yours. For why should it be
Outsiders? Neighbors, you — that’s more than empty name.
I still remember you, and when the Schupo came,
You remembered me. Reminded them of me.
May friends of mine sit down and raise their jugs
To drink away my death, toast the things they’ll own:
The platters and candles, tapestries and rugs.
May they drink all night, and at the break of dawn
May they search for gold and for precious stone
In mattresses, couches, and duvets in turn.
Their work will go so fast, it will almost burn,
While billowed horsehair, seagrass, eiderdown,
And clouds from gutted pillows will drift gently
Down to their arms. And then my blood will cling
To fiber and to fluff and form the wings
Turning those in seventh heaven into angels.
It’s one thing for Horace, who lived to 56, to claim “non omnis moriar” (“not all of me will die”) — another for a 25-year-old Jew hiding in Nazi hell. The poetry Horace left behind offered comfort; Ginczanka’s material possessions are only a threat. If Mrs. Chomin hadn’t hoped to pillage Ginczanka’s “Jewish things” after her death, if jealousy towards her neighbor’s relative wealth hadn’t turned to spite, Ginczanka wouldn’t have needed solace in the first place.
I’m haunted by those pastel-colored dresses. I wonder if Ginczanka remembered, when writing that…
