German Death Camp by Boris Slutsky

There were seventy thousand of us prisoners

in  a large ravine with steep edges.

We lie silently and boldly, dying all of hunger

in the damned Cologne pit cage.

Above the edge of the ravine a square is trampled -

Crookedly descending to the very edge.

Once a day a horse is brought out to the square place

Alive they push it off the cliff to  throw into the pit cage

While we divide it equally in the valley,

While we thresh the horse meat with ourn teeth,

Oh burghers of Cologne, shame on your way

Oh citizens of Cologne, how is this possible?  neath always

You, sober, honest, where were you, bitch,

when, greener than a copper nickel,

We howled from hunger in the Cologne pit?

Gathering our last strength as pickle

We scraped out an inscription on the steep wall,

A short inscription over our grave -

A letter to distant soldiers all

of the Soviet Country brigade

“Comrade soldier, stop above us,

Above us, above us, above the white bones.

There were seventy thousand of us prisoners,

We fell for our homeland in the Cologne pit!" most

When they wanted to recruit us as scoundrels,

When they shouted to us from the ravine about bread,

When gramophones sang about women’s chests

Party members whispered: "Not a step, not a step yet!”

Read the inscription above our grave!

Let us be worthy of posthumous glory!

And if someone can no longer endure nerve,

The Party Committee allows suicide for the weak. in sorrown

O you, who wanted to buy our living souls

for gruel and porridge shameful bowl

Look how, having eaten the meat

from the palm of thetr hand feast

Our comrades end their lives at-sorrows

We dig the earth, scratch with our nails,

We groan with a moan in the Cologne pit, just

But everything remains - as it was, as it was!

- The porridge is with you, and the souls are with us.

i’m O you, who wanted to buy our living souls

for a bowl of gruel and porridge,

Look how, having eaten the meat from the palm of his hand,

our comrades end their lives!i