Sylvain Gutmacker, Belgium, biography

Summary

All that is known of this young Jewish pharmacology student, who came from Belgium, was that he escaped the persecution of the Jews by “going underground” in the concentration camp of Dachau and remaining there until liberation. G. v. Walraeve, one of Gutmacker's former fellow prisoners, sent copies of the poems Gutmacker had written in Dachau, which were preserved in a handwritten manuscript, to the Archive of the Dachau Memorial Site.

Four of these poems, three of which are included here, were written in Dachau concentration camp in 1942, but Gutmacker continued to keep his poetry notebook until 1945. Its contents offer a harrowing insight into his inner life, which, even after liberation, continued to be haunted by his extreme experiences. On March 28, 1948, only three years after his liberation, Sylvain Gutmacker took his own life.

Tristesse

Le vide de mon coeur

Ma brûlante douleur

Engourdissent mon âme.

Pas de soeur, pas d'amie

Ô douceur infinie

pour bercer mes sanglots

Tristement je m'en vais

Dans des lieux plus discrets

Y pleurer ma souffrance

La nature sans vie

Par l'hiver endormie

est muette à ma voix

Je suis seul, ô poète

Mais tes vers, doux remède

Seuls m'apportent l'Oubli.

Juin 1942

Sadness

It is empty, my heart

And the pain smarts

Numbing my soul.

No sister, no friend

O infinite tenderness

To cradle my sobs

Sadly I go off

To the most remote spots

To cry over my suffering

Nature is dead

Winter is asleep

And does not respond to my weeping

I'm alone, o poet

Only your lines let me forget—

My sweetest remedy.

June 1942—Translated by Donna Stonecipher

Regrets

Souvent, dans les tortures de mes nuits d'insomnie

Quand mon âme déchirée m'interroge tout bas

Souvent, quand je ressens le vide de ma vie

Et que de ma misère, je cherche le pourquoi,

Je revois, comme un songe, mon enfance dorée

Où, dédaigneux du présent, je vivais dans l'avenir:

Ô mon âme, par l'ardent Idéal dévorée,

l'Idéal de créer et de ne point mourir.

Créer! Il n'est rien de plus beau pour un être éphémère!

Se survivre à soi-même, inextinguible espoir!