For Tomorrow Ich hoff` auf morgen: The Story and Poetry of Hilda

For Tomorrow
Ich hoff’ auf morgen: The Story and Poetry of Hilda Stern Cohen
written and performed by Gail Rosen
Excerpt from section 1:
1)
Modeh ani l'fanecha, melech chai v'kaiyom — I gratefully thank You, O living
and eternal King, for You have returned my soul within me with compassion.
Abundant is your faithfulness.
What I remember in my early childhood was quite idyllic. It was a very rural area. We
had a small farm. My sister and I would sit on the wagon, pulled by cows and take
lunch to the people in the fields.
We were just part of the village children growing up there, and we were treated by our
neighbors very well. I remember I taught myself to read by going around different
neighbors' houses and looking at the canisters, which said “sugar, salt, flour,” stuff like
that. I went from one house to another, looking at the canisters, until I figured out they
said the same things! Then I decided I could write too, and I couldn't — I must have
been around five.
So I scribbled something, and I asked my mother what I had written; I was sure I had
written something. She said “I don't know. It doesn't make any sense.” So I went across
to my neighbor who was a blacksmith. This was a fascinating place, with sparks flying
in the dark. I went over to Karl, the smithy, and he did read it. He made it up,
obviously. He read me a whole megillah, a whole story there. I went to my mother and
said, “I don't know what's the matter with you, but Karl across the street can read
everything I wrote.”
[Sung in German; English translation included in program notes:]
Ich bin nicht Kind geblieben
A Child No More
Die Märchenzeit ist lang dahin –
die Zeit der goldnen Flügel,
ich hock’ im Garten, sinn’ und bin:
ein Pferd mit Eisenzügel.
The time of fairy tales has long since passed,
The time of golden wings;
Enclosed within the garden, deep in
thought, I am
A horse in iron reins.
Ich reck’ mich auf – ich schreie laut –
ich schreie zu zerstieben,
die neue Mär vor der mir graut,
ich bin nicht Kind geblieben.
I rear, I scream —
I scream to scatter
The new and horrifying tale.
I am child no more…
[translation: Elborg Forster]
Nieder-Ohmen (Hesse), Stern family farm in the late 1920’s.
Hilda Stern Cohen visiting Nieder-Ohmen, 1986.