Joshu and Miriam
 

The author of these portraits was perhaps the greatest Hungarian poet of the Holocaust, a Jewish Catholic convert who fell victim to a mass murder of Jews perpetrated by the regular Hungarian Army under standard orders. The poems below, published in 1930 while he was still a student, were condemned by the courts for blasphemy and the poet barely escaped exclusion from all his country`s universities.

1.
I am twenty-two years old. Thus
Christ too might have appeared in the autumn
at the same age when he
still had no beard, he was blond and maidens
dreamt of him nightly!
 
2.
Just look at her hands! like dying
flowers in frost. Her hair cascading.
She’s resting, a graceful dove
on a pillow. She’s Mary!
…but you have known and loved
girls with such faces!
 
Miklós Radnóti (1907–1944)

Translated from the Hungarian & Edited by Thomas Land


If you have any comments on these poems, Thomas Land  would be pleased to hear from you.