May 1939
Translating a Heartbreaking Poem
Published in
9 min readJan 28, 2021
May 1939. These two words say it all: the spring before the war, the calm before the storm. They form the title of a poem written by the brilliant and ill-fated Zuzanna Ginczanka when she was only 22 years old.
May is the month of love — especially when you’re 22. But history doesn’t care about the seasons, and troubling rumors from across the German border disturbed…
