A Poem From Out of WWII: Ich Möchte Nach Hause Wandern/I Want to Wander Home Again

    Edith von Sanden, my aristocratic East Prussian grandmother, lived to escape the invading Russian Army during that final, bitter winter of World War II. At her home in Guja, East Prussia, she was a sculptress and a poet. When paging through one of her old, published books, Bunte Blumen Überall (Bright Flowers Everywhere), I found a creased and yellowed paper folded in the pages. The poem below was written on that paper.

    I think she must have written the poem while she was making her dangerous passage across the frozen part of the Baltic Sea - that part which is called the Frisches Haff. I can only imagine the fear she must have felt- many people died on that ice when it cracked, giving way to the angry, frigid waters below.

    She never returned to Guja. She never again looked out of her window to the courtyard below where her beautiful Trakehner horses stood, but I know she always dreamed of home. Her words so moved me that I translated the verse into English, but I'm also posting it in German for those of you who can read the language. Somehow, it seems more powerful in its original form.

Ich Möchte Nach Hause Wandern

Ich möchte nach Hause wandern

In einem Bettlergewand

Auf stillen und einsamen Strassen

Von niemand erkannt.

Und ob auch die Füsse bluten

Die Kräfte langsam vergehen

Ich wollte wandern und wandern

Bis ich die Heimat gesehen!

Und wenn meinen Händen entglitte

Zuletzt auch der Bettlerstab

Nur Glück wärs für meine Seele

Ich fand in der Heimat mein Grab.

Edith von Sanden-Guja

I Want to Wander Home

I want to wander home

In torn beggar’s clothes

On peaceful, lonesome pathways

That no one else would know.

And should my feet be bloody

And all my strength be gone

Yet, shall I keep on walking

Until I see my home.

My beggar’s staff may slip

Slowly from my hand

But my soul shall be in heaven

In the grave upon my land.

(Translation by Marina Gottlieb Sarles)

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