From Old and Young Manuscripts (1935–1981)
70. Lithuania, homeland mine — the opening words of the famous epic, Pan Tadeusz, by the Polish Romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz, a native of the Vilna area. [BACK]
71. Body-burners — Jewish prisoners forced by the Germans to burn in the pits of Ponar the bodies of about 100,000 Jews shot there. [BACK]
72. Leyzer Volf — original Yiddish poet (1910-1943), neighbor and friend of Sutzkever (died in exile in Soviet Central Asia). [BACK]
73. Rokhl Sutzkever — (1905-1942) a talented painter and the poet's relative, was a member of the group of painters and Yiddish poets known as "Young Vilna." [BACK]
74. Needleshine — In the first days of the German occupation of Vilna in July 1941, Sutzkever hid in a narrow crawlspace under a thin roof where he pierced a hole for light and wrote poetry. He returned after the liberation of Vilna in July 1944. [BACK]