Bên dưới xin mời xem hai bản dịch Anh và Pháp từ một bài thơ tiếng Đức rất dài của Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956): Kinderkreuzzuz (thánh chiến của trẻ em). Người ta đoán Brecht thoáng trong đầu buổi chung cuộc bi thảm của Kinderkreuzzuz, một trong bảy tám cuộc Thánh Chiến gồm toàn trẻ con ra đi để chiếm lại đất thánh Jerusalem, vạn ngàn đứa trẻ không bao giờ trở lại, hoặc chết hoặc làm nô lệ. Có lẽ tác giả chỉ lấy chi tiết ‘không trở về’ bỏ qua những điều ở mặt trái của lịch sử.
Kinderkreuzzug (có trên tay các bạn qua La Croisade des Enfants và Children’s Crusade) là một bức tranh khác trên mọi phương diện nhưng bi thảm to, bi thảm nhỏ đều là bi thảm. Bối cảnh là Ba Lan vào những ngày đầu của thế chiến 2. Năm mươi lăm trẻ mồ côi và một con chó, lạc lõng, ôm vào nhau, mang một ý niệm mơ hồ là đi về phía nam có an bình. Nhưng đi đường nào, hướng nào? Chúng gặp một người lính bị thương gần chết trên chiến địa; chúng chăm sóc, mong người ấy đủ sức cùng đi và chỉ đường. Chiến binh bất hạnh nầy cùng lũ trẻ hướng về Bilgoray; gần tuần lễ kẻ lữ hành trung niên duy nhất ấy chết; những kẻ đồng hành thơ ấu đào tuyết đào đất chôn chàng. Trước khi chết, chàng đủ sức chỉ cho chúng ngay ngã rẻ đó có một bảng hiệu chỉ đường mà chàng biết có dưới tuyết sâu. Chúng tìm ra, có thật; nhưng bảng hiệu và cái cột có ích gì?!, chiến tranh và thời tiết đã đảo lộn lòng người, đảo lộn, đảo lộn mọi thứ, và đảo lộn hướng chỉ chính xác đường về Bilgoray.
Không ai thấy một bóng dáng trẻ thơ. Lâu lắm người ta tìm thấy một con chó thất tha thất thểu; còn mang trên cổ một tấm bìa, với mấy chữ non yếu: “xin cứu chúng con, 55 đứa không biết hiện ở đâu, con chó sẽ dẫn ba má ông bà ...đến nơi chúng con đang ôm nhau chờ chết, xin cứu chúng con". Chưa ai làm gì được thì con vật đã chết vì thiếu ăn, không làm xong việc chỉ đường.
La Croisade Des Enfants
En mil neuf cent trente-neuf, en Pologne,
Il y eut une bataille sanglante
Qui a transformé villes et villages
En zones désertes.
La sœur perdit son frère
La femme son homme à la guerre,
Entre les ruines et le feu dévorant
L'enfant perdit ses parents.
Il n'est plus rien venu de Pologne,
Pas de lettre ni de nouvelles
Dès lors dans les régions orientales
Courut une histoire étrange.
La neige tombait, tandis que les gens
Dans une ville orientale
Racontaient qu'une croisade d'enfants
Avait commencé en Pologne.
Là trottinaient des enfants affamés
En bandes descendant les chaussées
Et emmenaient avec eux d’autres
Des villages en décombres.
Ils voulaient fuir la guerre
Et tout ce sombre rêve
Et un jour, ils voulaient
Arriver dans un pays en paix.
Ils avaient un petit führer
Qui leur a fait grand peur
Il avait un petit doute
Il ne connaissait pas la route.
Un gars de onze ans traînait
Un gamin de quatre ans
C'était comme une mère
Dans ce monde tout en guerre.
Un petit juif marchait avec la troupe
Il avait un col de belle coupe
Il était habitué au pain le plus blanc
Et au combat, il était très vaillant.
Suivait un terne gars gris
Qui se perdait dans le paysage
Et portait une faute horrible sur son visage :
Il venait d'une ambassade des nazis.
Et il y avait un chien
Qui dans la bataille, les avait rejoints
Qu'ils traitaient comme un des leurs
Car ils ne pouvaient agir à contrecœur.
Il y avait une école
Et un petit prof de calligraphie
Un élève sur un mur effondré
Avait juste pu écrire pai...
Il y avait un amour
Elle avait douze ans, lui en avait quinze
Tout au fond d'une cour
Elle lui peignait les cheveux
L'amour ne put pas durer
Il vint un trop grand froid :
Comment refleurissent les bois
Quand il a tant neigé ?
Il y avait aussi un enterrement
Le jeune au col de belle coupe
Était porté par deux Allemands
Et deux Polonais jusqu'à sa tombe.
Protestants, catholiques et nazis étaient là
Pour l'enterrement
Et à la fin un petit communiste parla
De l'avenir des vivants.
Ainsi il y avait la foi et l'espérance
Mais ni pain, ni viande.
Et ne les engueulez pas, quand ils grapillent
Si vous ne leur offrez pas d'abri.
Et ne tourmentez pas les misérables
Qui n'ont rien sur la table
Quand on est cinquante pour manger
Il ne faut pas de l'abnégation, mais du blé .
Vers le Sud, ils avancent sans peur
Le Sud, c'est là où le soleil
À midi marque douze heures
Juste au milieu du ciel.
Ils trouvèrent alors un soldat
Il gisait blessé dans la sapinière
Sept jours, ils le soignèrent
Afin qu'il les emmène là-bas.
Il leur dit : à Bilgoray !
Il avait une fièvre terrifiante
Après huit jours, il mourut en route
Lui aussi, ils l'ont enterré.
Il y avait là un panneau de direction
Par la neige entièrement caché
Et qui n'indiquait plus l'orientation
Car on l'avait retourné.
Il n'y avait pas de pire blague
En dehors des affaires militaires.
Et quand ils cherchèrent Bilgoray
Ils ne purent rien trouver
Ils restèrent autour de leur führer.
Il regardait à travers le rideau de neige
Il indiqua de sa petite main quelque chose
Ce doit être par là, dit le führer.
Une fois, la nuit, ils virent un feu
Ils n'allèrent pas devant.
Une autre fois, trois tanks passèrent
Des hommes étaient dedans.
Une fois dans une ville, ils arrivèrent
Là, ils firent un détour
Jusqu'à ce qu'ils la contournèrent
Et ils repartirent pour un nouveau jour.
Une fois en Pologne du Sud
Sous la neige, par moins vingt-cinq
On a perdu de vue
Les cinquante-cinq.
Quand je ferme les yeux
Je les vois qui errent
D'une ferme perdue
À une autre disparue
Au dessus d'eux, dans les nuées
Des bandes nouvelles font leur apparition
Mühsam vagabonde dans le vent glacé
Sans patrie, sans direction.
Cherchant après le pays de la paix
Sans tonnerre, sans feu
Rien à voir avec ce qu'ils connaissaient
Leur mouvement s'étire serpentueux.
Et il m'apparaît dans l'aube
Plus du tout le même :
Je vois d 'autres petits visages
Espagnols, français, jaunes.
En Pologne, ce mois de janvier
On attrapa un chien
Dont le maigre cou retient
Un écriteau de carton accroché.
On lisait : Aidez-moi !
Nous ne savions plus le chemin,
Nous étions cinquante-cinq
Le chien leur montra.
S'il ne peut pas venir, ce chien
Qu'on le chasse
Mais il ne faut pas l'abattre
Il connaît le coin.
L'écrit était d'une main d'enfant
Comme l'ont vu les paysans
Un an et demi est passé depuis ce matin
Le chien est mort de faim.
Children’s Crusade
In Poland, in
nineteen thirty-nine,
there was the bloodiest fight:
turning ev’ry town and village
into a wilderness of night.
Young sisters had lost their brothers;
young wives their men at war;
in the blaze and the heaps of rubble
children found their parents no more.
Nothing has come out of Poland,
letter or printed report;
but in the East runs a story
of the most curious sort.
Snow fell as they told one another,
there in an Eastern town,
about a children’s crusade:
deep in Poland, wand’ring round.
Lost children were scuttling, hungry;
in little formations were seen.
There they gathered with others,
standing where villages once had been.
They wanted to fly from the fighting,
let the nightmare cease;
and one fine day they’d come
upon a land where there was peace.
They had their little leader,
keeping them on the go,
he had a terrible worry:
the way he just did not know.
A little Jew was found marching in step:
he had a velvety collar,
he was used to the whitest bread,
and yet he showed much valour.
Once two brothers joined the pack,
tried strategic campaigning.
When they stormed a peasant’s empty shack,
they left it because it was raining.
A thin, grey boy kept himself apart,
he avoided provocation.
He was marked by a fearful guilt:
he came from the Nazi legation.
And there was among them a drummer-boy,
he found drum and drumsticks in a village shop
that had been raided,
the troop allowed no drumming:
noise would have betrayed it.
And there was a dog,
they’d caught him to eat him;
kept him on as an eater:
that was the only way to treat him.
They had their symphony,
by a waterfall in the snow,
our drummer-boy could use
his drumsticks,
since nobody could hear him. No!
And then there was some loving.
She was twelve, he was fifteen;
there in a ruined cottage,
she sat and combed his hair.
But love it is not for ever
not in the biting cold:
for how’ can the saplings blossom
with so much snow to hold?
Then there was a war,
war against some other children on the run;
and the war just simply ended:
sense it had none.
And then there was a trial,
on either side burned a candle.
What an embarrassing affair!
The judge condemned! What a scandal!
Then there was a funeral,
Velvet Collar it was whom they buried,
the body by Polish and German bearers
to burial was carried.
Protestants and Catholics, and Nazis were there,
to consign him to his mother earth.
At the end they heard a little socialist
talk with confidence of mankind’s rebirth.
So there was faith, there was hope too,
but no meat or bread.
Had people who cuffed them for stealing
offered them shelter instead!
But none should rebuke the needy man
who would not part with a slice:
For fifty odd children you need flour,
flour not sacrifice.
They wandered steadily southward.
South is there, where the sun
stands high at midday
for ev’ry-one.
Once, to be sure, they found a soldier
wounded, in pine-woods he lay.
They tended him seven days,
so that he could tell them the way.
He spoke up clearly: “To Bilgoray!”.
His fever made him rave.
An eighth day he did not live to see:
for him too they dug a grave.
True, there was a signpost also:
deep in the snow they found.
In fact it had ceased to show the way:
someone had turned it round.
And when they hunted for Bilgoray,
nowhere could they find it.
They stood there, around their leader
He looked at the snow-laden air,
and made a sign with his little hand,
and told them: “It must be there”.
Where once the south-east of Poland was,
in raging blizzard keen,
there were our five-and-fifty
last to be seen.
Whenever I close my eyes I see them wander
there from this old
farmhouse destroyed by the war
to another ruined house yonder.
High above them, in the clouded sky
I see others swarming, surging, many!
There they wander, braving icy blizzards,
homes and aims they haven’t any.
Searching for a land where peace reigns,
no more fire, no more thunder,
nothing like the world they‘re leaving
mighty crowds too great to number.
In Poland that same January,
they caught a dog half strangled:
a cord was hung round his scraggy neck
and from it a notice dangled.
Saying this: please come and help us!
Where we are we cannot say.
We’re the five-and-fifty
the dog knows the way.
The writing was in a childish hand.
Peasants had read it over.
Since then more than a year has gone by.
The dog starved: he didn’t recover.
there was the bloodiest fight:
turning ev’ry town and village
into a wilderness of night.
Young sisters had lost their brothers;
young wives their men at war;
in the blaze and the heaps of rubble
children found their parents no more.
Nothing has come out of Poland,
letter or printed report;
but in the East runs a story
of the most curious sort.
Snow fell as they told one another,
there in an Eastern town,
about a children’s crusade:
deep in Poland, wand’ring round.
Lost children were scuttling, hungry;
in little formations were seen.
There they gathered with others,
standing where villages once had been.
They wanted to fly from the fighting,
let the nightmare cease;
and one fine day they’d come
upon a land where there was peace.
They had their little leader,
keeping them on the go,
he had a terrible worry:
the way he just did not know.
A little Jew was found marching in step:
he had a velvety collar,
he was used to the whitest bread,
and yet he showed much valour.
Once two brothers joined the pack,
tried strategic campaigning.
When they stormed a peasant’s empty shack,
they left it because it was raining.
A thin, grey boy kept himself apart,
he avoided provocation.
He was marked by a fearful guilt:
he came from the Nazi legation.
And there was among them a drummer-boy,
he found drum and drumsticks in a village shop
that had been raided,
the troop allowed no drumming:
noise would have betrayed it.
And there was a dog,
they’d caught him to eat him;
kept him on as an eater:
that was the only way to treat him.
They had their symphony,
by a waterfall in the snow,
our drummer-boy could use
his drumsticks,
since nobody could hear him. No!
And then there was some loving.
She was twelve, he was fifteen;
there in a ruined cottage,
she sat and combed his hair.
But love it is not for ever
not in the biting cold:
for how’ can the saplings blossom
with so much snow to hold?
Then there was a war,
war against some other children on the run;
and the war just simply ended:
sense it had none.
And then there was a trial,
on either side burned a candle.
What an embarrassing affair!
The judge condemned! What a scandal!
Then there was a funeral,
Velvet Collar it was whom they buried,
the body by Polish and German bearers
to burial was carried.
Protestants and Catholics, and Nazis were there,
to consign him to his mother earth.
At the end they heard a little socialist
talk with confidence of mankind’s rebirth.
So there was faith, there was hope too,
but no meat or bread.
Had people who cuffed them for stealing
offered them shelter instead!
But none should rebuke the needy man
who would not part with a slice:
For fifty odd children you need flour,
flour not sacrifice.
They wandered steadily southward.
South is there, where the sun
stands high at midday
for ev’ry-one.
Once, to be sure, they found a soldier
wounded, in pine-woods he lay.
They tended him seven days,
so that he could tell them the way.
He spoke up clearly: “To Bilgoray!”.
His fever made him rave.
An eighth day he did not live to see:
for him too they dug a grave.
True, there was a signpost also:
deep in the snow they found.
In fact it had ceased to show the way:
someone had turned it round.
And when they hunted for Bilgoray,
nowhere could they find it.
They stood there, around their leader
He looked at the snow-laden air,
and made a sign with his little hand,
and told them: “It must be there”.
Where once the south-east of Poland was,
in raging blizzard keen,
there were our five-and-fifty
last to be seen.
Whenever I close my eyes I see them wander
there from this old
farmhouse destroyed by the war
to another ruined house yonder.
High above them, in the clouded sky
I see others swarming, surging, many!
There they wander, braving icy blizzards,
homes and aims they haven’t any.
Searching for a land where peace reigns,
no more fire, no more thunder,
nothing like the world they‘re leaving
mighty crowds too great to number.
In Poland that same January,
they caught a dog half strangled:
a cord was hung round his scraggy neck
and from it a notice dangled.
Saying this: please come and help us!
Where we are we cannot say.
We’re the five-and-fifty
the dog knows the way.
The writing was in a childish hand.
Peasants had read it over.
Since then more than a year has gone by.
The dog starved: he didn’t recover.
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