Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Red Rosa

Sorry, I don't want the blog to be overrun by YouTube clips, but I stumbled across this short piece of montage on Rosa Luxemburg that accompanies Brecht's poem 'Epitaph, 1919'. I'm not going to pretend that it's the greatest clip in the world but it holds my interest. Reprinted below is a different translation of Brecht's poem with accompanying image by Käthe Kollwitz.


Epitaph 1919

Red Rosa has also now disappeared

Where she lies is unknown

Because she told the truth to the poor

The rich have hunted her out of the world.


Epitaph for Karl Liebknecht

Here lies

Karl Liebknecht

The fighter against war

When he was struck down

Our city still continued to stand.


Epitaph for Rosa Luxemburg

Here lies buried

Rosa Luxemburg

A Jewess from Poland

Champion of the German workers Murdered on the orders of

The German oppressors. Oppressed;

Bury your differences!

2 comments:

Manuel said...

Hi. You might be interested in the greek version of Rosa's Epitaph (music by Thanos Mikroutsikos) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo1d5AyvoCE

Imposs1904 said...

Thanks for the comment and the link.

I'll check it out.