By EDITH BRUCK

Translated by JEANNE BONNER

Poems appear below in English and the original Italian.

Translator’s Note

What I find indelible about Edith Bruck’s work is the subtle ways she introduces the topic of the Holocaust. A poem like “Pretty Soon” provides a glimpse of the author’s mindset – she managed to survive Auschwitz, and she hasn’t wasted a moment since her liberation as a teenager. She’s been incredibly prolific as a writer, and has traveled the world. But winning her freedom is an event forever married to the worst event ever: losing both of her parents in concentration camps. The challenge is to render that subtlety, which in the original is effortless. This is her life – it’s what she’s always known. 

This thematic back and forth is also present in “There Were Eight of Us.” There were eight of us – but not anymore. One brother was swallowed up by the Holocaust, to use a phrase Bruck often employs in other work.