GHETTO FACTORY 76: CHEMICAL WASTE CONVERSION (Geto fabrik 76)

Poem by Rachmil Bryks, 1967

Rachmil Bryks' poem Ghetto Factory 76: Chemical Waste Conversion was written in Yiddish in 1943 in Łodź and was published in English translation in 1967. The significance of this poem lies in the fact that Bryks recited it at a banquet in the Łodź ghetto in 1943, and this recitation nearly cost him his life. He was placed on a list for deportation to Auschwitz but quick-thinking, clever friends hid him and thus rescued Bryks from the sure fate of death. In the forward to this work, Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote: "It is a duty to read this work; it will be remembered for generations." The original manuscript was discovered in the ghetto and is now housed in the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, Poland.

In this poem, Bryks speaks of Ghetto Factory 76, as each factory in the Łodź ghetto was numbered. Here the "sweepings" of flour, sand, dust, and ashes swept from the mill and bakery floors are collected and used in the manufacture of liquor and alcohol for ghetto commissars. Ghetto inhabitants could instead use the sweepings to create gelatin, goulash, and pastry for their own consumption. Potato skins, left over from the creation of thin soup for ghetto inhabitants, become an overwhelming temptation for the starving workers within the factory. They dare not partake of these scraps, for discovery of this "theft" could mean jailing, cleaning latrines with one's bare hands, or even death. The theme of hunger is the thread that binds the entire poem together. To see food, no matter how mixed with other matter it may be, and to have it shoveled into bags before the eyes of starving souls is the ultimate cruelty. Bryks refers to these souls as "famished animals" and portrays their vicious behavior toward one another in the soup lines. Hope continues to thrive in typical Bryks fashion, however, and this work becomes reminiscent of his novelette A Cat in the Ghetto. The inhabitants dream of Adolf Hitler's demise and speak of Winston Churchill's threats toward Nazi Germany. As Bryks writes: "Eyes glower with envy and hatred and hearts thirst for revenge." Many are sure that the Nazi machine will quickly be destroyed, bringing forth the liberation of the ghetto.

The poem continues to describe the factory's goal of producing alcohol that will provide a pleasant drink for those in charge of the ghetto, while those who must toil at its production are left with nothing but empty stomachs and yearning hearts. Bryks scolds the administrators of the ghetto with the following lines:

Seeing directors and commissars
In brightly-lit halls,
At linen-covered tables,
Amid sounds of music
Swallowing liquor,
Gulping down alcohol,
Fancy dishes—gorging themselves
And carrying on harlotry.

With these accusatory lines, it is not difficult to see why Bryks's life was endangered by the recitation of this poem in public.

Selected lines from Ghetto Factory 76 were also set to music by William Gunther and are included at the end of the piece. Gunther also set Bryks's poems Nisht vartzwaifeln (Don't Despair ), Tzwaigen (Twigs ), and Du a Nenufar Wasserlilie (You are a Water Lily ) to music. They are included with the poem Ghetto Factory 76. This work should be read in conjunction with Bryks's novelette A Cat in the Ghetto to gain full understanding of Bryks's style and his message regarding life in the Łodź ghetto.

—Cynthia A. Klíma