The HyperTexts

CHARGES OF ANTISEMITISM
by Michael R. Burch

It pains me to write this, as a longtime translator, editor and publisher of Holocaust poetry, but I have been accused of antisemitism by a group of character assassins. I will point out the obvious, which is that I am not an antisemite, because:

• Later on this page I have published some of my original Holocaust poems and translations of Jewish Holocaust poets that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am not an "antisemite." My original Holocaust poems include "Epitaph for a Child of the Holocaust," "Auschwitz Rose," "Cleansings," "Pfennig Postcard, Wrong Address" and "Something."

• "Pfennig Postcard, Wrong Address" was originally published in the Holocaust anthology Blood to Remember.

• "Auschwitz Rose" was published by Voices Israel.

• "Something" has been used in numerous student Holocaust projects and was used by Windsor Jewish Community Centre during a candle-lighting ceremony. "Something" has also been turned into a YouTube video by Lillian Y. Wong and translated into Romanian by Petru Dimofte.

• "Epitaph for a Child of the Holocaust" was set to music by Sloane Simon after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. The poem was published by Poets for Humanity, Genocide Awareness and Viewing Genocide in Sudan. It was also translated into Romanian by Petru Dimofte, into Turkish by Nurgül Yayman, into Czech by Z J Pinkava, and into Indonesian by A. J. Anwar. In some cases the poem has been titled "Epitaph for a Palestinian Child" and "Epitaph for a Child of Gaza."  

• I worked closely with the Holocaust survivor Yala Korwin to translate, edit and publish Polish and Yiddish Holocaust poems that had never before been published in English. While Yala was alive, she did the translating and I served as her editor and publisher. After Yala died, I began translating Holocaust poems with the help of translation tools and by studying other translations when they existed.

• I have since translated the poems of Jewish Holocaust victims and survivors, including Franta Bass, Paul Celan, Ber Horvitz, Primo Levi and Miklos Radnoti, among others. This can be verified with a Google search like:

Michael R. Burch Holocaust translations

Just cut and paste the search term above, or read the poems published on this page.

• I and my wife Beth allowed a young Jewish friend of our family, David Quint, to live with us rent-free for around eight to nine months, and to borrow our cars while he was looking for a job in the Nashville area, where we live.

• David and his twin brother Brian Quint call Beth "ma-ma" and consider her a second mother.

• We have a number of Jewish friends, including Michael and Sherry Quint and their sons, whom we hosted and visited frequently when they lived in our neighborhood, as well as other Jewish neighbors.

• We have visited a nearby Jewish synagogue on several occasions, including for a Bar Mitzvah, a reading of the Torah, and multiple art shows.

I have criticized Israel for its racism against Palestinians and Bedouins, but that is not "antisemitism." Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud criticized Jewish Zionists for their racism, and they were Jews, not "antisemites." It is not "anti-German" to criticize Nazi Germany for its racism against Jews, Gypsies and Slavs.

I criticize racism wherever I see it.

And I haven’t just talked the talk, but have also walked the walk.

I own a computer software company, Alpha Omega Consulting Group Inc., and at one time I was the only white person in my company. It was a small home-based company and I gave two fine young black programmers, Rod Allen and Steve Harris, keys to my house. I allowed a young Jewish man t live in my house rent-free for around eight months to nine months. I have translated Jewish poets, Arab poets, Native American poets, Chinese poets, Japanese poets, Indian poets, Muslim poets, gay and lesbian poets, etc.

Anyone who calls me a racist or antisemite is a liar.

CHARACTER REFERENCES BY OTHER POETS AND EDITORS

Michael Burch is a poet who is a supporter of ALL poets, which is one of his greatest attributes, among many others.  He has for many years put forward poetry in all its forms, traditional or nontraditional, with personal or universal themes. He cannot be construed as an anti-semite or an anti-anything. — Jean Mellichamp Milliken, editor of The Lyric

***

"I consider Michael R. Burch both a friend and a mentor, and I am appalled by these baseless, slanderous accusations of antisemitism that are being directed towards him. I can personally vouch that he is not an antisemite because he has dedicated numerous poems to the victims of the Holocaust. In fact, the first poem of his that I ever publicly commented on was “Something,” which he has dedicated to both “the children of the Holocaust and the Nakba.” Additionally, Burch has translated the writings of numerous Jewish poets, many of whom were Holocaust victims and survivors. These are hardly the actions of an antisemite, and anyone with two brain cells to rub together should be able to see that. I would like to close by saying that I myself am of Jewish heritage, and I am related to Holocaust victims. Like Burch, I am vehemently opposed to the genocide that is being committed in Gaza, as well as the Zionism that pervades both the Israeli and American governments. No good can come from acknowledging one atrocity against mankind (i.e. the Holocaust) only to delegitimize another (i.e. the Nakba and the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people). — Shannon Winestone, poet and editor

***

"I have known Mike Burch for many years and can vouch for him not being an antisemite. Mike is a humanitarian who writes poetry full of heart and soul for all of humanity — he doesn't distinguish between people, and certainly doesn't define anyone by race, gender or nationality. He is an exceptional poet, a genius, who has never held any xenophobic views whatsoever. To be absolutely clear, Mike has never criticized anyone for being Jewish — never defined anyone by their faith or nationality. There have never been any rhetorical or physical manifestations of antisemitism. The accusation is entirely baseless and without foundation." — Peter Devonald, poet and editor

***

"I have known Mike Burch for almost four years. It is of course an error to accuse the author of poems such as 'Epitaph for a Child of the Holocaust' and 'Auschwitz Rose' of anti-Semitism. He has also translated the Jewish Holocaust poets. There's clearly an agenda lurking behind these accusations; and most likely, one to do with professional jealousy." — F. F. Teague, poet

***

I have known Mike Burch for many years, ever since I first discovered his poetry and his incredible loose translations of a variety of international poets. I was so impressed I devoted a complete post to these works on my Brief Poems blog (https://briefpoems.wordpress.com/2017/04/10/pearls-brief-poems-by-michael-r-burch/). I subsequently discovered his wide-ranging views which are explored in great detail in his own massive resource, The HyperTexts (http://www.thehypertexts.com). He has long been an advocate for the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people. Those who confuse such a stance with anti-semitism reveal their own highly partisan and one-sided view of the Middle East conflict. They, and not Mike Burch, are the real racists. — Conor Kelly, poet and editor

***

"As far as Michael Burch is concerned, and being acquainted with him for the last several years, I have not found a single word in his original writings, nor anything that could be construed as prejudicial in his translations, unless of course the original writers had some kind of discriminatory bent. To the contrary, I strongly believe that Michael can be viewed as a most dedicated individual who is determined to be as beneficial in every thing he does to strike back at those who are hunting for reasons to hate." —Donna M. Davis-Prusik, poet

***

"For all the many years that I have known Michael Burch, he has been consistently passionate and active in his support of Jewish victims of the Holocaust. He published many poems by himself and others expressing horror and sympathy for all the victims of nazi barbarity. The first poem by me that he published dealt with an old European Jewish victim lost in Australia.

Here is Michael’s translation of a poem:

Speechless at Auschwitz
by Ko Un
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

At Auschwitz
piles of glasses
mountains of shoes
returning, we stared out different windows.

'Ko Un speaks for all of us, by not knowing what to say about the evidence of the Holocaust, and man's inhumanity to man.' — Michael R. Burch

And here is an example of Michael’s sincere involvement:

Miklós Radnóti (translations of a Hungarian Jewish poet; perhaps the greatest of the Holocaust poets)
Louis Emanuel Fynaut (a Flemish resistance fighter with a keen eye and a keener pen)
Terezín Children's Holocaust Poems (poems by child poets of a Nazi concentration camp)
Martin Niemöller (he wrote the most famous of all Holocaust poems: "First they came for the Jews ...")
Einstein on Palestine (Albert Einstein was both a victim and survivor of the Holocaust)

I am outraged by the suggestion that Michael Burch is in any way antisemitic. He is a humanitarian." — Janet Kenny, poet, peace activist and former opera singer

***

Not that long ago the United States was busying itself with the task of, as so admirably put by General Westmoreland, bombing the Vietnamese back to the Stone Age. In support of this position, Francis Cardinal Spellman, cardinal-archbishop and chaplain for the American combat troops, blessed the U.S. bombs destined for Vietnam. Supporters of that war considered antiwar processors un-American, and were fond of proclaiming, "Love it or leave it!" Of course the passage of fifty years has taught us that the war emerged from a foundation of lies such as The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Today the citizenry is confronted with another moral dilemma, namely the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Once again we are being told to abandon reason and moral decency in support of what can only be called a war of racial extermination. When T.E. Lawrence was still alive, he warned against the injustice which confronts us now in Gaza. And, as was the case with the war in Vietnam, individuals who oppose Israel's military adventurism in Palestine are being accused of lack of patriotism and antisemitism. Once again we find jingoism and name calling being substituted for reason and common sense. Among the latest to be tarred with accusations of racism is Michael Burch, who, in contradistinction to his accusers, has been a reasoned advocate for social justice and a peace founded on fair play. I am familiar with Mr. Burch's positions and work as a writer and peace activist, and can only iterate that any accusations of antisemitism against him are really only hateful, fallacious attempts to silence him by illogical appeals to authority and to emotion. — Bob Zisk, poet, linguist and peace activist

HOLOCAUST POEMS AND TRANSLATIONS BY MICHAEL R. BURCH

The poems on this page can be distributed freely, as long as Michael R. Burch's name appears with his poems; Mary Rae should be credited if the image is copied or used in any way. Please do not use the poem or image for commercial purposes, respecting the sacredness of the subject.  



Auschwitz Rose
by Michael R. Burch

There is a Rose at Auschwitz, in the briar,
a rose like Sharon's, lovely as her name.
The world forgot her, and is not the same.
I revere her and enlist this sacred fire
to keep her memory exalted flame
unmolested by the thistles and the nettles.

On Auschwitz now the reddening sunset settles!
They sleep alike—diminutive and tall,
the innocent, the "surgeons."
                                              Sleeping, all.

Red oxides of her blood, bright crimson petals,
if accidents of coloration, gall
my heart no less.
                          Amid thick weeds and muck
there lies a rose man's crackling lightning struck:
the only Rose I ever longed to pluck.
Soon I'll bed there and bid the world "Good Luck."

Published by Voices Israel, Other Voices International, Verse Weekly, Black Medina, Promosaik, FreeXpression (Australia), Litera (UK), Yahoo Buzz, de Volksrant Blog (Holland), Sonnetto Poesia (Canada), Trinacria, Pennsylvania Review, and a number of other literary journals and websites

Frail Envelope of Flesh
by Michael R. Burch

for the mothers and children of the Holocaust

Frail envelope of flesh,
lying cold on the surgeon’s table
with anguished eyes
like your mother’s eyes
and a heartbeat weak, unstable ...

Frail crucible of dust,
brief flower come to this—
your tiny hand
in your mother’s hand
for a last bewildered kiss ...

Brief mayfly of a child,
to live two artless years!
Now your mother’s lips
seal up your lips
from the Deluge of her tears ...

Published by The Lyric, Promosaik (Germany), Setu (India) and Poetry Life & Times; translated into Arabic by Nizar Sartawi and into Italian by Mario Rigli

When we consider man's inhumanity to man, few images are as stark as that of Nazi "surgeons" conducting horrific experiments on innocent children.



Something
by Michael R. Burch

for the children of the Holocaust

Something inescapable is lost—
lost like a pale vapor curling up into shafts of moonlight,
vanishing in a gust of wind toward an expanse of stars
immeasurable and void.

Something uncapturable is gone—
gone with the spent leaves and illuminations of autumn,
scattered into a haze with the faint rustle of parched grass
and remembrance.

Something unforgettable is past—
blown from a glimmer into nothingness, or less,
which denial has swept into a corner, where it lies
in dust and cobwebs and silence.

Published by There is Something in the Autumn (anthology), The Eclectic Muse (Canada), Setu (India), FreeXpression (Australia), Life and Legends, Poetry Super Highway, Poet’s Corner, Promosaik (Germany), Better Than Starbucks and The Chained Muse; also used in numerous Holocaust projects, translated into Romanian by Petru Dimofte, turned into a YouTube video by Lillian Y. Wong, and used by Windsor Jewish Community Centre during a candle-lighting ceremony



Epitaph for a Child of the Holocaust
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.

Published by Romantics Quarterly, Poetry Super Highway, Mindful of Poetry, Poets for Humanity, The New Formalist, Angle (Australia), Daily Kos, Katutura English (Namibia), Genocide Awareness, The Hip Forms, Darfur Awareness Shabbat, Viewing Genocide in Sudan, Trudantalion Blog, FreeXpression (Australia), Setu (India), Brief Poems, Better Than Starbucks and Art Villa; also translated into Romanian by Petru Dimofte, into Turkish by Nurgül Yayman, into Czech by Z J Pinkava, and into Indonesian by A. J. Anwar; also set to music by Sloane Simon after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting

Pfennig Postcard, Wrong Address
by Michael R. Burch

We saw their pictures:
tortured out of our imaginations
like golems.

We could not believe
in their frail extremities
or their gaunt faces,

pallid as our disbelief.
They are not
with us now ...

We have:
huddled them
into the backroomsofconscience,

consigned them
to the ovensofsilence,

buried them in the mass graves
of circumstancesbeyondourcontrol.

We have
so little left
of them

now
to remind us ...

Originally published in the Holocaust anthology Blood to Remember, then by Poetry Super Highway, Gostinaya (Russia), Ulita (Russia), Promosaik (Germany), Lone Stars, GloMag (India) and by Archbishop Michael Seneco on his Facebook page and personal website



Speechless
by Ko Un
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

At Auschwitz
piles of glasses
mountains of shoes
returning, we stared out different windows.

Franta Bass: The Little Boy With His Hands Up



Frantisek “Franta” Bass was a Jewish boy born in Brno, Czechoslovakia in 1930. When he was just eleven years old, his family was deported by the Nazis to Terezin, where the SS had created a hybrid Ghetto/Concentration Camp just north of Prague (it was also known as Theresienstadt). Franta was one of many little boys and girls who lived there under terrible conditions for three years. He was then sent to Auschwitz, where on October 28th, 1944, he was murdered at age fourteen.

The Garden
by Franta Bass
translation by Michael R. Burch

A small garden,
so fragrant and full of roses!
The path the little boy takes
is guarded by thorns.

A small boy, a sweet boy,
growing like those budding blossoms!
But when the blossoms have bloomed,
the boy will be no more.

Jewish Forever
by Franta Bass
translation by Michael R. Burch

I am a Jew and always will be, forever!
Even if I should starve,
I will never submit!

But I will always fight for my people,
with my honor,
to their credit!

And I will never be ashamed of them;
this is my vow.
I am so very proud of my people now!

How dignified they are, in their grief!
And though I may die, oppressed,
still I will always return to life ...

Postcard 1
by Miklós Radnóti
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Out of Bulgaria, the great wild roar of the artillery thunders,
resounds on the mountain ridges, rebounds, then ebbs into silence
while here men, beasts, wagons and imagination all steadily increase;
the road whinnies and bucks, neighing; the maned sky gallops;
and you are eternally with me, love, amid all the chaos,
glowing within my conscience — incandescent, intense.
Somewhere within me, dear, you abide forever —
still, motionless, silent, like an angel stunned to complacence by death
or an insect inhabiting the heart of a rotting tree.

Author's Note: In my opinion, Miklós Radnóti, a Jewish-Hungarian poet, was the greatest of the Holocaust poets. He called his final poems "postcards." They were written on his death march and were later discovered in his coat pocket by his wife. She found his body lying in a mass grave. His poetic postcards are stark warnings of the very real dangers created by racism, tribalism and ultra-nationalism.



Survivors
by Michael R. Burch

In truth, we do not feel the horror
of the survivors,
but what passes for horror:

a shiver of “empathy.”

We too are “survivors,”
if to survive is to snap back
from the sight of death

like a turtle retracting its neck.

Published by The HyperTexts, Gostinaya (Russia), Ulita (Russia), Promosaik (Germany), The Night Genre Project and Muddy Chevy; also turned into a YouTube video by Lillian Y. Wong



Cleansings
by Michael R. Burch

Walk here among the walking specters. Learn
inhuman patience. Flesh can only cleave
to bone this tightly if their hearts believe
that God is good, and never mind the Urn.

A lentil and a bean might plump their skin
with mothers’ bounteous, soft-dimpled fat
(and call it “health”), might quickly build again
the muscles of dead menfolk. Dream, like that,

and call it courage. Cry, and be deceived,
and so endure. Or burn, made wholly pure.
If one prayer is answered,
                                         “G-d” must be believed.

No holy pyre this—death’s hissing chamber.
Two thousand years ago—a starlit manger,
weird Herod’s cries for vengeance on the meek,
the children slaughtered. Fear, when angels speak,

the prophesies of man.
                                    Do what you "can,"
not what you must, or should.
                                               They call you “good,”

dead eyes devoid of tears; how shall they speak
except in blankness? Fear, then, how they weep.
Escape the gentle clutching stickfolk. Creep
away in shame to retch and flush away

your vomit from their ashes. Learn to pray.

Published by Other Voices International, Promosaik (Germany), Inspirational Stories, Ulita (Russia), The Neovictorian/Cochlea and Trinacria



Postcard 4
by Miklós Radnóti
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I fell beside him — his body taut,
tight as a string just before it snaps,
shot in the back of the head.
"This is how you’ll end too; just lie quietly here,"
I whispered to myself, patience blossoming into death.
"Der springt noch auf," the voice above me said
through caked mud and blood congealing in my ear.

"Der springt noch auf" means something like "That one is still jumping."

Author's Notes
by Michael R. Burch

What was the genesis, the root cause of the Holocaust? The Holocaust became possible when Nazi Germany denied Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals and other human beings the protection of fair laws and courts. All too often the victims were completely innocent women and children, even babies. If German courts had upheld the rights of all people, the Holocaust could never have taken place. Thus the way to keep such things from ever happening again is simple (which does not mean "easy"): the world needs to require every nation to establish equal rights, fair laws and fair courts for all human beings, without exception.

Allowing exceptions to this simple rule invariably leads to terrible misery, suffering and premature unjust deaths. Another name for premature unjust deaths is "murder." White settlers once stripped Native Americans of their human rights and dignity, and soon innocent women and children were walking the Trail of Tears, and dying. White slaveowners once stripped African Americans of their human rights and dignity, and not only did black slaves suffer abomination upon abomination, but it took a terrible Civil War followed by a century of Jim Crow laws, kangaroo courts and public lynchings before the United States finally began to embrace its avowed creed of all men being created equal. Very similar things happened to Australian aborigines and South African blacks, among others. Again, each premature unjust death was a murder. If we add all the horrors together, untold millions of people were murdered. Those murders could have been prevented by fair laws and fair courts.

These problems are only corrected when nations finally abandon racism (I call it the "chosen few sin-drome") and establish equal rights, fair laws and fair courts for everyone. Unfortunately, this is a lesson Israel needs to learn and take to heart today, because Israel's racist laws and courts have led to escalating violence on both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. A Palestinian baby should not—must not—be born with inferior rights to a Jewish baby. When black babies were born with inferior rights to white babies in the United States, the country was ripped apart, because multitudes of white Americans could not bear to see the misery and suffering of so many black children. Today there are many Jewish humanitarian organizations and Jewish individuals who feel the same way about the Palestinians. The existence of more than 200 Jewish organizations that oppose the abuse of Palestinians is proof positive that a terrible problem exists. Why are Jews, Americans and Internationals using their bodies as human shields, to protect Palestinian women, children and farmers in Gaza and the West Bank? The "proof is in the pudding," as the saying goes. If the children of one race need human shields to protect them from the adults of another race, and those adults are wearing military uniforms, then something is clearly wrong. Things only improved in the United States when employees of the government stopped persecuting minorities and started protecting them.

It's time for all Jews of good conscience, all Americans of good conscience, and all the people of the world to confront the simple facts: government-sanctioned racism, unjust laws and unjust courts will always lead to racial violence. Since 1776 human beings have been rightly unwilling to be stripped of their self-evident human rights, and the Palestinians have every reason to demand equal rights for themselves. I am an editor, translator and publisher of Holocaust poetry, not an anti-Semite. I believe in protecting all women and children, and not harming any of them unjustly. I have studied History and have listened to the Witnesses who endured the horrors of the Holocaust, and they tell me that every human being must be protected by fair laws and courts. If it was wrong for the Nazis to strip Jews of their human rights during the Shoah (Hebrew for "Catastrophe"), then it is wrong for Israel to strip Palestinians of their human rights during the Nakba (Arabic for "Catastrophe"). The Shoah is fortunately over; the Nakba unfortunately continues. We must all say "Never again!" to all such atrocities, and never allow a child to be born bereft of equal rights and the protections of fair laws and courts.

War, the God
by Michael R. Burch

War lifts His massive head and turns ...
The world upon its axis spins.
... His head held low from weight of horns,
His hackles high. The sun He scorns
and seeks the rose not, but its thorns.
The sun must set, as night begins,
while, unrepentant of our sins,
we play His game, until He wins.
For War, our God, our bellicose Mars
still dominates our heavens, determines our Stars.

For an expanded bio, circum vitae and career timeline of the translator, please click here: Michael R. Burch Expanded Bio.

The HyperTexts