O Chimneys

O the Chimneys
“And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I shall see God” JOB 19:26
O the chimneys
On the ingeniously devised habitations of death
When Israel’s body rose drifted as smoke
through the air –
To be welcomed by a star, a chimney sweep,
A star that turned black
Or was it a ray of the sun?
O the chimneys!
Freedomway for Jeremiah and Job’s dust –
Who devised you and laid stone upon stone
The road for refugees of smoke?
O the habitations of death,
Invitingly appointed
For the host who used to be the guest –
O you fingers
Laying the threshold
Like a knife between life and death –
O you chimneys,
O you fingers
And Israel’s body dissolves in smoke through the air!
-Nelly Sachs, 1947
(Translated by Michael Hamburger)
Source: Sachs, Nelly. “O, the Chimneys.” Holocaust Poetry, edited by Hilda Schiff. St. Martins Griffin, 1995. p. 41
Guiding Questions:
1. The reality of genocide is introduced in the first stanza. What are the traditional associations of a habitation and a chimney? How does Sachs
seek to introduce a contrary purpose for these chimneys and houses?
2. What is the significance that the astral bodies of stars and suns have turned black?
3. Metaphorically, how do the chimneys become a pathway to freedom through the interspersion of religious allusions?
4. Is there redemption present in this freedom?
5. How does Sachs indicate the inherent deception of the camp’s design?
6. Who is the omnipresent host of these houses?
7. Through synecdoche, to whom do the designing fingers belong?
8. What does the word “threshold” signify about the chimneys’ true purpose?
9. How does the last stanza unite the poet’s lament and the brutal facts of genocide?