Universes in Universe

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Heads High!

Info / context to the poem

This poem was written in 1942 by an unknown Austrian woman who was executed in Ravensbrück. It was known to many prisoners' wives as a camp song and was often chanted.

The song becomes a weapon the weaker and more threatened and aware of the dangers the group is. Most political songs are in fact protest songs, less by their message, more in the act of their performance, the singing together. They have a strong identifying effect, create a sense of community, and reduce fear.

The text testifies to the rigid, unchangeable contrast between the fateful "outside" of the camp, in which the women are forcibly imprisoned, and the inner pride, the "knowledge of one's own strength," which, however, only allows a believing waiting for a change of fate. The communist Rita Sprengel changed the last stanza:

That’s why we must, as long as bearable,
to bend before the force of evil,
and constantly act for the life,
that lies beyond these barracks.

The accent in Rita Sprengel's version shifts to taking action against the imposed fate and seeing this as a possible and always necessary effort. It is important to her to render the compulsion accordingly with a "must" (instead of "want"). The "to act" takes up the image of the spun (fate) web again and thus reinforces even more the call to struggle daily for one's own ability to act, which is ultimately to be interpreted as active resistance against the imposed constraints. Yet even the simplest attempts to resist suffering still reveal the traces of their failure in the text. The form of the poem is a cross-rhyme, which, however, is interestingly counteracted by the structure of the stanzas in terms of content. The "outside" of the camp's fate is juxtaposed with the poet's own inner attitude. In the end, it is only the rhyme form that is able to bind these two halves together. (C. Jaiser)


Recitation: Irma Trkszak and Edith Sparmann
(From Austria and Germany; were political prisoners at Ravensbrück From Austria and Germany; were political prisoners at Ravensbrück.)

Handwriting and recitation from "Europa u boji. 1939 -1944" (Europa im Kampf)