András Mezei, a major poet of the Holocaust, died in his native Budapest on May 30. He was 78. As a child, Mezei survived the three-month Soviet siege of Nazi-occupied Budapest in the city’s Jewish ghetto. As a teen, he emigrated to Israel but returned to Hungary after just a year and half. He was a literary journalist and a prolific author of novels, filmscripts and poetry. After the collapse of Communist regime, he established the independent Budapest City Press and the literary-political journal Central European Times. Shortly before his death, he published a substantial volume of poetry, which included the two selections below.

FLAMES

The ones who gave up their personal cyanide tablets
to spare a child from agony in the gas —
themselves have kindled the burning bush,
the ones who approached the end with dignity
herded to cruel death but not like cattle —
themselves have kindled the burning bush,
the ones who were able to dig their graves and toss
hell behind themselves with the clumps of earth —
themselves have kindled the burning bush.

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THE 20179TH

Like ink on the blotting paper, the number
tattooed in Auschwitz splinters and spreads
on the inside of my lower left arm
when I ride the tram in the summer
and, forgetting myself, I happen
to reach up in my short-sleeved shirt
to hang on to the strap.

May I never lift my right arm
if I forget the mark on my left.

Translated from the Hungarian by Thomas Ország-Land.

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