Death

“A survivor of the Holocaust, Paul Celan wrote spare, hauntingly beautiful lyric poems about suffering and loss” (Puchner 1467).  Celan’s poetry deals with the unspeakable; he writes of the vile horrors of his experience, yet he conveys them in a moving and rhythmic way. “Deathfugue,” his most famous poem “refers to the dance music that an SS commander forced prisoners to play during marches and executions [at a concentration camp]” (Puchner 1468).  The poem shows the shocking dichotomy of happy music being sung while suffering and death occurs amidst the Holocaust.

“Deathfugue” begins with the prisoners proclaiming they drink toxic liquid each day, all day long: “Black milk of daybreak we drink it at evening / we drink it at midday an morning we drink it at night / we drink and we drink” (Celan lns. 1-3). The prisoners are forced day in and day out to figuratively drink in the ways of the camp. If they choose to go against authority, they will be killed. Thus, the black milk symbolizes death and the Nazi’s power. When Celan writes, “we shovel a grave in the air where you won’t lie too cramped” he is being facetious (4). Since thousands of prisoners were killed in gas chambers, the graves in the air reference the smoke from the crematoriums. 

As the poem continues, Celan writes of a vicious SS guard, who is oblivious to his cruel treatment of Jews or to the suffering happening around him. Instead, he works in a hideous labor camp during the day and is entertained by singing and watching others work. In the evening, he goes home, sleeps in a warm bed, plays with his snakes, looks up at the beautiful stars, and writes about his beloved, a beautiful blonde German woman.

During the day, however, he terrorizes the prisoners with the prospect of death. Meanwhile, prisoners dig more graves and others play music for him to enjoy: “He shouts dig this earth deeper you lot there you others sing up and play / he grabs for the rod in this belt he swings it” (Celan 16-17). If they do not do as he commands, there will be brutal consequences.

Similar to the music that is played, “Deathfugue” repeats itself, mimicking the advancing frenzied feeling of intimidation and possible death. The rhythm of the poem gets faster as the theme of death becomes more real for the prisoners.

In another one of his poems, “Aspen Tree,” Celan also speaks of death but on a more personal level. Since Celan’s parents were killed in concentration camps, he expresses his mourning for his mother in this poem: “My mother’s hair never turned white” (Celan 2). Clearly, his mother’s life was cruelly cut short; thus, she did not get to experience old age.

Celan opposes sentiments for his mother with inanimate objects.  The comparison shows the similarity between the lifeless objects and his mother’s short life: “Dandelion, so green is the Ukraine / My fair-haired mother did not come home” (Celan 3-4). His mother was killed in a Ukrainian concentration camp. Her life was wiped out like a dandelion, an unwanted weed growing in a yard. She may have been beautiful, but the Nazi Party considered her useless. As a result, she never made it home.

Paul Celan’s poetry is powerfully haunting. He conveys horrors from the Holocaust, an experience he could not forget. Similar to author Tadeusz Borowski, who wrote “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentelman,” Celan had difficulty adjusting to life after the Holocaust. Horrific memories haunted each man; as a result, they could not escape the torment, and each committed suicide. Their poetry serves as a bitter reminder of their unhappiness and continual anguish.

Works Cited

Celan, Paul. “Aspen Tree.” Trans. John Felstiner. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin Puchner et al. Shorter 3rd ed. Vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton, 2013. 1470. Print.

---. “Deathfugue.” Trans. John Felstiner. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin Puchner et al. Shorter 3rd ed. Vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton, 2013. 1469-1470. Print.

Puchner, Martin, Gen ed. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Shorter Third ed. Vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton, 2013. Print.