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“The Executioner” is a poem by the American poet Maurice Ogden, often quoted along with the famous text of Martin Nigeller “When they came ...” . The poem was written in 1951, published in 1954, nothing is known about its author. In 1964, an animated film adaptation was released (the authors of the Goldman and Paul Julian), who received the prize at the festival in Locarno at the same time.

1.

Once an executioner came to our city.
Grand blood and gold his cloak.
The people looked suspiciously
And near the trial he folded the scaffold.

At the door of the court now standing
The scaffold was wide like a door,
In height - almost like a doorway.
In a word, it would definitely fit in it.

In the evenings we went home from work,
At the court there was a executioner with a bcheva,
And the only question tormented everyone:
Which of us is a criminal? What is his sin?

Let no one be to blame for anything,
A tin gaze scared us an executioner.
But once someone decided to ask:
- Hey executioner! Who was going to execute?

The tin eye flashed cunningly,
And the executioner's answer dumbfounded us:
- Who will serve me the best service, that
He will receive a rope and a scaffold.

He went into the crowd, and his hand
She sank into one stranger.
And then we sighed calmly -
Since the criminal was found, everyone was saved!

Tomorrow morning they will demolish the gallows!
Everyone parted so that the trial would be done,
Nobody argued with the executioner at all -
He was so solid in his cloak.

2.

In the morning the sun came to our city,
It dawned on quiet streets,
and came out of darkness then
Black gallows at the court.

And the executioner stood in his place
Tailing the twine with a knot.
Tin gaze and pike grin ...
With a businesslike mine, he was waiting for us.

We exclaimed: - Hey executioner, tell me,
Is that criminal still alive?
And we were thrown into the cold from his words:

- This gallows are not for him.
He said with a smile: - Who would I be,
if I had brewed this porridge here
Just for the sake of one stranger?!
I just tried it for so far.

Someone shouted:-Killer! Shame and shame!

And the executioner is already standing near him.
“You yank with that,” he asks,
- Who is executed on the gallows yesterday?

And again, the hand lay on the shoulder,
And the crowd froze bewildered
Nobody argued with the executioner at all.
He was very terrible in his cloak.

And that evening I saw the people
that the scaffold increases.
He, having absorbed a huge puddle of tears,
In the city square, roots have grown.

He became a width from the step then
rising to the door of the court,
And exactly flush with the court height
The gallows became at night that.

3.

The third gallows - so the executioner explained -
It was a toorist and lack ofness:
-Someone is connected, answer soon
With the convict? By the way, this is a Jew.

In response, we screamed at a different way:
“So who was your faithful servant?”
“I know now,” he said through laughter,
- That the crossbar can withstand everyone.

... and the fourth gloomy song sang,
Breathing, distracting from business.
And the executioner said: - What do you need to him,
hellish black and advanced?

Further fifth, sixth. We shout in chorus:
“Have you done your best servant?”
- We have, executioners, one glorious trick,
helping to develop a hatch.

We did not ask questions from now on.
And the executioner did not hesitate - death was behind death.
And increased day after day
Squate in the square in front of the court:

The base was pushed by for now
They did not cover the area of ​​his sides.
The crossbar, pillar, loop, loop,
And the black shadow lay on the city.

4.

Suddenly the executioner for the entire deserted quarter
My name shouted persistently.
I saw a gallows and realized:
He already dragged on to the loop,

And in the end I decided to call me
So that I help to disassemble the gallows ...
And with good hope I went there -
To the huge gallows at the court.

I walked around the city in silence,
And the executioner at the court smiled at me,
keeping in his touched fist
Bchev, tied to a knot.

And then, with an invigorating whistle, easy
Pressing on the hatch, opened it
And with the victorious smile of the executioner
He touched my shoulder with his hand.

“But this scaffold is for others!”
You lied, the executioner, - I went astray.
- I'm not a henchman, not a servant,
You lied, the killer, lied vilely!

But the tin eye flashed slyly:
- I lied? Not at all. Only without embellishment
set out one truthful news:
For you, the scaffold is prepared here.

For I don't know the best service
than your cowardly hope.
Where are others, who would for your life
Standing with you in a single system?

“Everyone died,” I answered quietly.
“Everyone was killed,” the guest corrected me.
- The first was a visiting one, then a Jew.
I did not act against your will.

Under the crossbar that closed the light,
Like no one alone, I was at that moment.
Here the executioner tied me up. Scream "Wait!"
Not heard: the area was empty.

Animated film adaptation "Executioner" (1964)

Color restored version

Translator "Executioner" poet Kirill Medvedev reads a poem on promotions against concentration camps for migrants (08/13/2013)