Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

POEM: ‘September 1, 1946’

Seven years after Auden sat
uncertain and afraid
in one of the dives on 52nd Street,
my great-grandmother arrives, finally, in New York.
She was lucky, everyone will say,
to have left Germany in time,
and to have waited out the war
with her husband in Brazil.

But on September 1, 1946,
she does not feel so lucky.
The endless voyage over, yes,
but she is detained on Ellis Island
while her husband, too weak, too tired,
breathes his difficult last in the Marine Hospital.
Yet again the unmentionable odor of death
offends the September night.

On what would have been their fortieth anniversary
She is admitted, alone, to the United States.
For the first time since 1938
she can see and hear and touch her daughter.
They depart South Ferry and make their way
to West 139th Street, where wait
the son-in-law the woman has yet to meet
and the baby grandson.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.