Translation: A Beautiful Letter From The Poet Haitian Jacques Roumain To The Red Cross of His Country [1939]
“In a moving document, he proposes to the Red Cross to organize [an] act in aid of Spanish mothers and children who died of death from the forces at the service of the invasion [The Spanish Civil War.]”
“(Agence France Monde), — The great Haitian poet Jacques Roumain, has addressed to the Director of the Haitian Red Cross the following letter:”
“Mr. Director: The person who addresses you does not act on this occasion either as a politician or as a militant: he does not try to represent but a tiny part of the universal conscience that suffers and reveals itself before the spectacle of martyrdom to which it has been subjected to by Republican Spain.
No matter how remote our country is from the theater of war, the radio [and] the newspapers echo the atrocious tragedy that bloody that admirable nation. I do not want to insist on the fact that the trenches where the army of the legal Government of the Spanish Republic swallow today the borders that separate civilization from barbarism. I am speaking of the rearguard, of the aimless cities, mercilessly bombarded, day after day, and which have seen the death of tens of thousands of children, women and old people.
To the terrifying danger of air attacks must be added today that of hunger. On the threshold of a harsh winter, millions of beings are prey to hunger. Thousands of cilia are already heading towards a slow agony. The most essential foodstuffs for life are lacking: meat, bread, butter, sugar, milk. The absence of food causes as much havoc as the bombs. And yet these heroic people do not complain. Against the assaults of hunger, she wages an aesthetic combat of extraordinary dignity. But it is necessary to help her at all costs. Think of our loved ones: our children, our wives, our parents. This makes us understand better by imagining her in the horrors of a similar drama, that it is our duty to mitigate so much suffering to the best of our humble means. To snatch innocent children from a terrible death.
I know that the Haitian people are poor; I also know that he is noble and generous; even despite the historical role that circumstances assigned to a nation emerged from slavery and the force of arms, which has always been placing ourselves in the jade of justice and of threatened freedom. I am convinced that in us subsides the ardent spirit of our ancestors who fought for the Independence of North America, who helped Bolívar and welcomed Maceo and Marti. Haitians are still those men sensitive to pain.
I propose that the Hatian Red Cross organize a Help Day for Spanish mothers and children. That by means of parties, theatrical and cinematographic performances, concerts, etc. that the government will undoubtedly authorize the [sic] to collect amounts of food that will constitute our modest contribution to a work of solidarity and kindness.
By doing so, we will have, in addition to the recognition of the Spanish people, the satisfaction of having fulfilled our duty.”
JACQUES ROUMAIN.
