The Full Text of “Refugee Blues”
The Full Text of “Refugee Blues”
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“Refugee Blues” Introduction
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“Refugee Blues” was written by the British poet W. H. Auden. First published in 1939, on the eve of World War II, the poem meditates on the plight of Jewish refugees who were forced to flee Nazi Germany but unable to find refuge elsewhere. As the poem does so, it raises broader questions about isolation, loneliness, and exile. It depicts the trauma and pain of being forced to leave home—and of being unable to find a place of safety and security in a violent and uncertain world.
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“Refugee Blues” Summary
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Let’s say there are 10 million people in this city. Some are living in mansions; some are living in slums. But there’s nowhere for us to live, my dear, there’s nowhere for us to live.
We used to belong to a nation, and we thought it was beautiful. If you look in the atlas, you’ll see it. But we can’t go there anymore, my dear, we can’t go there anymore.
An old yew tree grows outside the village church. Every spring, it blossoms again. But our old passports don’t blossom in the spring, my dear, they don’t blossom in the spring.
The immigration official slammed his fist down on the table and shouted, “If you don’t have a passport, then you’re legally dead.” But we’re still living, my dear, we’re still living.
I went to a committee for help and they told me to take a seat—then told me to wait until next year. But where will we go right now, my dear, where will we go right now?
I went to a political rally where the speaker said: “If we let the refugees enter our country, they’ll take our food.” He was talking about you and me, my dear, he was talking about you and me.
I thought I heard thunder in the sky. It was Hitler above Europe, saying, “They must die.” He was talking about you and me, my dear, he was talking about you and me.
I saw a poodle wearing a jacket fastened with a brooch. I saw a door open to let a cat in. But these were not German Jews, my dear, they weren’t German Jews.
I stood on the pier down at the harbor. I saw the fish swimming there—and they looked free enough. They were only ten feet away from me, my dear, only ten feet away.
I went for a walk in the woods and saw birds in the trees. They don’t care about the politicians; they sang freely. They weren’t human beings, my dear, they weren’t human beings.
In my dream, I saw a building a thousand stories tall. It had a thousand windows and a thousand doors. But not one of them belonged to us, my dear, not one belonged to us.
I stood in a big field in the falling snow, while ten thousand soldiers marched back and forth, looking for us, my dear, looking for us.
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“Refugee Blues” Themes
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Antisemitism and Complicity in Prejudice
“Refugee Blues” is about the plight of Jewish refugees in the 1930s. When the poem was written in 1939, millions of Jews were trying to flee Nazi Germany. However, most countries had strict quotas on Jewish immigration—and, as a result, most Jews were sent back.
The speaker of “Refugee Blues” is one of these Jews, and thus faces two kinds of antisemitism. On the one hand, there is the Nazi regime, with its explicit, state-sanctioned violence against Jews. On the other hand, there is the less explicit but no less virulent antisemitism of countries that use immigration quotas to exclude Jews. These countries have the power to help—indeed to save the speaker's life—but they refuse to do so. The poem thus levels a stern accusation against them, insisting they are complicit in the Jews' suffering and mass murder. To not actively step in to stop prejudice, the poem implies, is its own form of prejudice and cruelty.
Although the speaker identifies as a “German Jew,” Germany no longer feels like home. The speaker thought this country was “fair,” both beautiful and just, a safe place for Jews to live. But notice how the speaker refers to it in the past tense: “Once we had a country…” The speaker continues, mournfully, “We cannot go there now.” The speaker cannot go back because it isn’t safe; Hitler has taken power in Germany and believes Jews “must die.”
Despite this direct and dire threat, the speaker cannot find refuge elsewhere. The speaker seeks asylum in an unnamed country in Europe or the Americas, but that country frustratingly turns the speaker away on a technicality: the speaker’s passport is expired. An immigration official announces: “If you’ve got no passport you’re officially dead.” Without the proper documentation, the speaker is unable to enter the country—a country that could save the speaker’s life.
For the speaker, this refusal is both hypocritical and cruel. It is hypocritical because the country has no trouble housing other people. As the poem opens, the speaker complains “there’s no place for us, my dear”—even though the “city” where they find themselves has managed to find homes for “ten million,” with “mansions” for the rich and “holes” for the poor. Indeed, the inhabitants of the city seem more willing to help animals than these refugees: they give comfort and welcome to “poodle[s]” and “cat[s]”—they even dress their dogs in fancy “jacket[s]” to keep them warm! Thus even though they do not announce their antisemitism with the same force as the Nazis, their behavior reveals it: they act as though the lives of animals are more valuable to them than the lives of Jews.
And it is cruel because, without protection, the refugees face certain death. The poem closes with the refugees standing on a “great plain in the falling snow.” They have nowhere to hide. And there are “ten thousand soldiers” hunting for them. The speaker thus predicts that without refuge, Jews will be slaughtered. The poem blames the soldiers for their brutality and inhumanity—justifiably so, since they are pursuing and killing innocent people. But it also strongly suggests that the countries that turn the speaker away share a good deal of the blame and responsibility: they had the power to save the speaker and failed to do so.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-36
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Exile and Loneliness
“Refugee Blues” is, in part, about the fear and desperation of being a refugee. The speaker is terrified of returning to Germany, but also is unable to find a safe haven elsewhere. As a result, the speaker is isolated and in limbo, trapped between countries without a clear sense of home. The speaker does not hold out hope that this situation will get better, and the poem uses the speaker’s despair and frustration to convey the loneliness, pain, and sense of stagnancy that accompany exile.
Throughout “Refugee Blues,” the speaker’s mood is bleak and mournful. The poem begins with the speaker complaining that “there’s no place for us, my dear”—no safe home in any country. And no one will help the speaker: indeed, the people in the “city” would rather take in dogs and cats than Jewish refugees. The speaker thus feels friendless, profoundly lonely.
And without the possibility of finding asylum in a country like England or the United States, the speaker feels trapped. Even fish have more liberty than the speaker: they can at least “swim … as if they were free.” At points, the speaker seems jealous of animals and birds because they don’t have to deal with hateful “politicians”—they experience a kind of happiness and “ease” that the speaker no longer can.
The speaker seems to have given up on changing the minds of such politicians—even though they have the power to change the laws that exclude Jewish refugees. The poem does not directly address the countries and governments that refuse to grant asylum the speaker. Instead, using apostrophe, the speaker addresses another refugee, someone the speaker simply calls “my dear.” Instead of calling for, say, specific policy reforms, the speaker simply expresses sadness and frustration. Indeed, the speaker seems to have slid into despair. For the speaker, the poem is cathartic; a way for these refugees to get some of the weight of their situation off their chest.
But for the reader, it has a different effect: the speaker’s suffering and loneliness acts as a powerful call for action, an impassioned demand for change. By providing a window into the speaker's suffering, the poem thus makes a passionate case for more just and welcoming immigration laws.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-36
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Refugee Blues”
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Lines 1-6
Say this city ...
... go there now.The poem concerns the plight of Jewish refugees in Europe in the 1930s. Forced to flee persecution and violence in Nazi Germany, many Jews were unable to secure asylum in countries like England or the United States because they kept tight quotas on the number of Jewish immigrants admitted each year. Such Jews were trapped between countries—unable to find a safe refuge yet terrified of returning home.
As the poem opens, the speaker is trapped in that difficult position. The speaker is in an unnamed city. The city is enormous—ten million people live there. Some of them are very wealthy; some are very poor. As the speaker notes, “Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes.” The line is carefully constructed to emphasize the difference between the rich and the poor: its two clauses have the same grammatical structure, but they say opposite things—an instance of antithesis. And they are split by a caesura, which emphasizes that antithesis. Yet, despite the difference between rich and poor, they are united in one respect: they all have some kind of home, whether it’s a mansion or a tenement.
But the speaker has no such security. As the speaker complains, addressing another refugee—whom the speaker simply calls “my dear”—“there’s no place for us.” The speaker is worse off than even the poorest of the poor: at least they have a home.
This homelessness is especially bitter because the speaker once had a home: a “country” that the refugees thought was “fair.” (In other words, it was both beautiful and just, a safe place for Jews to live.) The country still exists—one can find it on a map. But they can’t return there: “We cannot go there now, my dear,” the speaker insists. It’s no longer safe for them.
“Refugee Blues” has an unusual, idiosyncratic form. W. H. Auden invented it specifically for the poem. The form of the poem is designed to convey the difficult, alienating, frustrating experience of being a refugee:
- It has no set meter: its line-lengths shift around unpredictably. Just as the speaker has no solid ground to stand on, the poem’s meter is unsteady.
- Each line of the poem is also end-stopped. As a result, the lines feel isolated from each other: there are strong borders or barriers between them—much like the borders the speaker cannot cross.
- The poem is rhymed AAB. The first two lines of each tercet rhyme with each other—usually using simple, direct rhymes. These lines thus feel like they belong together. But the third line of each tercet doesn’t rhyme with anything. It feels isolated, alone—just like the speaker.
- The third line of each stanza is also highly repetitive. The speaker introduces a phrase or sentence, like “We cannot go there now …” Then the speaker addresses the other refugee, “My dear.” Finally, the speaker repeats the opening phrase: “We cannot go there now.” Even though the third line of each stanza is quite different, they all feel linked together by their similar structures—and so they function as refrains for the poem. Paired with the poem's rhymes, these refrains help the poem feel musical, turning it into a "blues"—a song of mourning and despair.
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Lines 7-12
In the village ...
... are still alive. -
Lines 13-18
Went to a ...
... you and me. -
Lines 19-24
Thought I heard ...
... weren't German Jews. -
Lines 25-30
Went down the ...
... the human race. -
Lines 31-36
Dreamed I saw ...
... you and me.
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“Refugee Blues” Symbols
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Mansions
“Mansions” are a symbol of wealth and privilege. Invoking them, the speaker suggests that there a people living in the city in considerable comfort: they have big houses, lots of food, and, most importantly, they aren’t threatened by politicians like Hitler. This creates an implicit contrast with the speaker’s own situation. The speaker has no home, let alone an enormous mansion. Without such a safe, secure home, the speaker can’t escape from persecution; the speaker has no refuge, no place to turn. Bringing up the “mansions” then, the speaker suggests that it is unfair that some should live in such wealth and luxury while others struggle just to survive.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 2: “Some are living in mansions”
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Holes
“Holes” are symbols of poverty. Literally speaking, no one is actually living in a hole in the city. Rather, they live in dirty, cramped, run-down apartments: tenements and slums—the only homes available to the poor in this city. The “holes” thus stand in, symbolically, for the poverty of the people who live in them. And they also create an implicit contrast between the desperate situation of the poor and the speaker’s even more desperate situation. The poor may not live in “mansions,” but at least they have homes. The speaker has no home—neither a mansion nor a “hole.”
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 2: “some are living in holes”
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Blossoms
“Blossoms” symbolize rebirth. Even the “yew” tree in the “churchyard” is “old” it still puts forth new flowers every spring. Through this yearly cycle, the tree is reborn; it has a chance to renew itself, regardless who holds political power, what their policies are. But the speaker doesn’t have the same chance. The speaker’s passport doesn’t follow the rhythms of nature; it isn’t reborn every spring. It has expired, and the speaker’s home country, Germany, refuses to renew it: denying the speaker the capacity to travel freely.
The symbol thus serves to create a contrast between the speaker’s dangerous and difficult political situation and the tree’s relative freedom. By creating this contrast, the symbol suggests that the speaker should enjoy the same capacity for renewal and rebirth that the tree enjoys: that it is unnatural to be deprived of such freedom.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 8: “Every spring it blossoms anew”
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Daily bread
“Daily Bread” is a symbol for the well-being of a country—its capacity to support itself economically, to feed its people, to prosper. The “speaker” at the “public meeting” in lines 16-18 is thus advancing a deeply antisemitic argument. He is saying that Jews will steal the resources of the country, preventing it from prospering. This politician thus has no sympathy for the plight of Jewish refugees. Even though the poem's speaker is struggling to survive, threatened with death, the politician thinks the economic well-being of his own country is more important than the lives of the Jewish refugees. However, the reader shouldn't take the politician seriously: he is using "daily bread" as a convenient excuse to exclude the refugees, turning them into scapegoats.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 17: “"If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread"”
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Thunder
“Thunder” is a symbol of conflict, violence, and war. In literary tradition, poets often use “thunder” to describe the sounds of battle; a volley of cannon-fire might, for instance, be called “thunderous.” The speaker plays on that tradition here. After all, there isn’t—yet—a literal war going on. (“Refugee Blues” was written in 1939, just before the start of World War II.) Instead, as the speaker reveals in line 20, this “thunder” comes from Hitler himself; it embodies his anti-Semitic rhetoric. The speaker thus suggests that Hitler’s language is, in itself, a form of violence—and that it will lead to future violence. The symbol thus serves to underline and emphasize the speaker’s anxiety and fear. If the speaker returns home to Germany, the speaker will be forced to face such violence directly.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 19: “Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky”
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Building with a thousand floors
Literally speaking, the “building with a thousand floors / a thousand windows and a thousand doors” that the speaker describes in lines 31-32 is a skyscraper. Symbolically, however, it stands for the modern world—with its massive technological achievements, its huge cities, and its diverse societies. It symbolizes everything that is impressive and magnificent about modern life. In its grandeur, its sheer size, the “building” makes the speaker feel all the more bitter. After all, in a building so large, with so many "windows" and "doors," there ought to be space for the speaker. But even in a “building”—or a society—that large, that impressive, with so many resources and such economic power, there’s no place for a Jewish refugee.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Lines 31-32: “Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors, / A thousand windows and a thousand doors:”
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Great plain
The “great plain” that the refugees stand on at the end of the poem is a symbol for Europe itself. The speaker anticipates that war is about to start, and that Jewish refugees will be chased all over the continent by Nazi soldiers who want to murder them. The speaker feels unprotected in the face of these soldiers. The “great plain” doesn’t have any places to hide; it is open, bare. The symbol thus suggests how vulnerable the refugees are—and how easy it will be for the “ten thousand soldiers” to find them and kill them. It also suggests that the differences between countries don’t matter to the speaker. England and France, for instance, might have different cultures and languages; for the speaker, none of that is particularly important. It’s all the same “open field,” where the soldiers move unimpeded in their efforts to chase the refugees down.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 34: “Stood on a great plain in the falling snow”
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“Refugee Blues” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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End-Stopped Line
Every line of “Refugee Blues” is end-stopped. The poem never uses enjambment. The end-stops in the poem contribute significantly to its rhythm—and, at the same time, underline the sense of isolation and exclusion the speaker feels.
The end-stops contribute to the rhythm of the poem by making each line feel definite and complete. Sometimes, this emphasizes the poem’s rhymes—making the ring out more clearly and distinctly. But, of course, not all the lines in the poem rhyme. The third line of each stanza doesn’t rhyme at all. Those lines feel lonely, isolated, cut off. The end-stops contribute to that sense of isolation—since they work to further separate those lines from the rest of the poem.
Indeed, the poem’s strong and strict use of end-stop echoes the plight of the refugees. For instance, the end-stops in lines 10-12 reflect and amplify the problems with the speaker’s passport:
The consul banged the table and said,
“If you’ve got no passport you’re legally dead”:
But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.The end-stops not only function as barriers between lines, but they also echo the barriers between countries. In a poem without enjambments, these end-stops feel increasingly claustrophobic: there is no relief from them, no release, where the reader freely and easily crosses from one line to the next. Instead, like the speaker, the reader encounters borders and barriers everywhere they turn.
Where end-stopped line appears in the poem:- Line 1: “souls,”
- Line 2: “holes:”
- Line 3: “us.”
- Line 4: “fair,”
- Line 5: “there:”
- Line 6: “now.”
- Line 7: “yew,”
- Line 8: “anew:”
- Line 9: “that.”
- Line 10: “said,”
- Line 11: “dead":”
- Line 12: “alive.”
- Line 13: “chair;”
- Line 14: “year:”
- Line 15: “to-day?”
- Line 16: “said;”
- Line 17: “bread":”
- Line 18: “me.”
- Line 19: “sky;”
- Line 20: “die":”
- Line 21: “mind.”
- Line 22: “pin,”
- Line 23: “in:”
- Line 24: “Jews.”
- Line 25: “quay,”
- Line 26: “free:”
- Line 27: “away.”
- Line 28: “trees;”
- Line 29: “ease:”
- Line 30: “race.”
- Line 31: “floors,”
- Line 32: “ doors:”
- Line 33: “ours.”
- Line 34: “snow;”
- Line 35: “fro:”
- Line 36: “me.”
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Caesura
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Assonance
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Simile
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Repetition
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Parataxis
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Asyndeton
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Allusion
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"Refugee Blues" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Souls
- Holes
- Fair
- Yew
- Anew
- Consul
- Chair
- Quay
- To and fro
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(Location in poem: Line 1: “souls”)
People. There are ten million people living in the city. Technically, this can be thought of as an example of synecdoche.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Refugee Blues”
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Form
“Refugee Blues” is a 36 line-long poem made up of 12 tercets (a tercet is a three-line stanza). This stanza form is regular throughout, even though the poem doesn’t have a regular meter and its lines vary in length. However, it does have a strong rhythm—so strong that the poem feels sing-songy, like a torch song or a melancholy ballad. And as its title indicates, the poem is a kind of “blues”—a song of sadness and mourning. Again, though, the poem thus doesn’t follow any traditional poetic forms: its rhyme scheme isn’t adapted from the sonnet or the villanelle. In response to a set of 20th century crises—the rise of Hitler, the resulting surge of refugees fleeing persecution in Nazi Germany—and it accordingly develops a new form to explore and express the terror of life in the 20th century.
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Meter
“Refugee Blues” does not follow a set meter and instead is written in free verse. Its lines vary in rhythm and in length. In the first stanza (lines 1-3) of the poem, for instance, line 1 is 9 syllables long:
Say this city has ten million souls,
Line 2 is 13 syllables, and line 3 is 14 syllables long. The lines expand as the stanza unfolds, each line longer than the last.
Not all of the poem’s stanzas work that way, though. Stanza 3 (lines 7-9) follows a different pattern: line 7 ("In the village ...") is 11 syllables long, line 8 ("Every spring ...") is only 8 syllables long, and then line 9 ("Old passports ...") is 14 syllables.
As a result of these broad variations in line lengths, the poem feels off-kilter, unsteady: things keep shifting around. There’s no solid ground for the reader to stand on. In this way, the poem’s lack of regular meter, its shifts in line length and rhythm, echo the plight of the refugees it describes: they too have no steady ground, nowhere safe and secure. The poem’s insecurity and unsteadiness is the refugees' insecurity and unsteadiness.
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Rhyme Scheme
As its title suggests, “Refugee Blues” is a blues—a song of sadness and mourning. Its speaker is a Jewish refugee in the 1930s who has been forced to leave Germany. The speaker mourns this persecution—and the resulting sense of loss, homelessness, dispossession. And the poem’s rhyme scheme echoes and amplifies the speaker’s sense of alienation.
The poem is written in tercets, three-line stanzas that rhyme AAB. In other words, the first two lines of each stanza rhyme with each other. Take the first stanza:
Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:These rhymes tend to be simple and straightforward: the speaker rhymes strong, single-syllable words like “souls” and “holes” or “fair” and “there.” As a result, the first two lines of each tercet feel like they belong together: they form a powerful couple. Further, they give the poem its sing-songy feel. These rhymes help the poem sound like a blues.
But the third line of each tercet doesn’t rhyme with anything. It feels like the odd-man out—a kind of poetic third wheel. Again, look at the first stanza:
Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.In each stanza, the third line is as lonely and isolated as the refugees themselves, stuck at the end of each stanza without companionship. The poem’s rhyme scheme thus does two things at once: it helps create the poem’s strong sense of music and rhythm, making the poem into a blues, and it echoes the isolation and alienation of the refugees—who, like, the third line of each stanza, don’t fit in anywhere.
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“Refugee Blues” Speaker
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The speaker of “Refugee Blues” is a Jewish refugee living in the 1930s. Hitler's rise to power has forced the speaker to flee Germany, but the speaker has not been granted safe haven or asylum in another country. Everywhere the speaker goes, the speaker is turned away. The poem thus focuses on the speaker’s sense of loneliness, alienation, and homelessness. The speaker “once had a country” but now “cannot go there.”
The speaker addresses another refugee (only referred to as “my dear") to articulate the pain and anxiety such homelessness causes. As the speaker complains in line 3, “there’s no place for us” anywhere. As the poem proceeds, the speaker’s sense of frustration and victimization builds. The speaker complains about being targeted by politicians like Hitler; the speaker envies animals and fish, who are “free,” whose lives are not dominated by hateful “politicians” and therefore can sing "at their ease.” The speaker thus presents a damning indictment of Europe in the 1930s, attacking Hitler’s antisemitism and the indifference of countries like England and the U.S. to the plight of Jewish refugees.
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“Refugee Blues” Setting
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“Refugee Blues” is set in Europe in the 1930s. It discusses the plight of Jewish refugees—fleeing Germany to escape Nazi persecution, yet unable to secure asylum in countries like England and the United States. The poem does not specify where the speaker hopes to obtain asylum, and that’s part of the point of the poem: to the speaker, it doesn’t much matter whether France or Cuba or England or the United States refuses to grant asylum. The result is always the same: the speaker has become a person without a state, forced to return to Germany, where the speaker will face persecution and almost certain death. The setting of the poem is thus intentionally vague—a way of calling attention to the persecution and hypocrisy that German Jewish refugees faced wherever they turned.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Refugee Blues”
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Literary Context
Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973) published "Refugee Blues" in one of his most celebrated collections, Another Time (1940). Written in the period preceding, and just following, the outbreak of World War II, the book features some of Auden's best-known political poems, including "September 1, 1939," "Epitaph on a Tyrant," and "The Unknown Citizen."
Auden is considered one of the masters of English-language poetry. He was a modernist who helped to define that early 20th-century movement, with its groundbreaking formal and stylistic experimentation. For modernist poets like Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot, traditional poetic forms like the sonnet and meters like iambic pentameter felt stodgy and old-fashioned: they couldn’t capture the energy and speed of the modern world. Modernist poets thus sought new ways of making art capable of expressing the dynamics of modern society. “Refugee Blues” participates in this literary movement: with its unmetered lines and its unusual, innovative rhyme scheme, it creates a new form to express the isolation and homelessness of Jewish refugees during the 1930s.
However, “Refugee Blues” breaks from modernism in an important respect. Many of the leading modernist poets were deeply antisemitic. In his critical writings and poems, T. S. Eliot regularly expressed antisemitic ideas. (In a 1933 article—which he later retracted—Eliot proclaimed, “reasons of race and religion combine to make any large number of free-thinking Jews undesirable.”) Eliot’s close friend—and the de-facto leader of modernist poetry in English—Ezra Pound openly supported fascism. He even moved to Italy, where he made regular radio broadcasts in support of Mussolini. Some scholars have even argued that antisemitism is not incidental to modernism: it was deeply part of the poems that the modernists wrote and responded to the transformations in modern society.
By contrast, Auden's poetry was often explicitly socialist and anti-fascist. For a time, critics viewed him as the head of a so-called "Auden Group" of left-wing UK poets, which also included Louis MacNeice, Stephen Spender, and Cecil Day-Lewis. As his career went on, however, Auden grew skeptical of poetry's ability to effect social change. (Another poem from Another Time, "In Memory of W. B. Yeats," famously claims that "poetry makes nothing happen"—though it's a qualified claim.) Even as Auden's work became increasingly personal and spiritual, it remained at the forefront of English-language literary culture.
Historical Context
“Refugee Blues” engages directly with the history of Europe in the 1930s. After his rise to power in 1933, Hitler targeted German Jews, destroying their property and businesses and depriving them of their civil rights. This escalating pattern of violence and persecution culminated in the Holocaust, during which the Nazis murdered 6 million European Jews. As Jews fled Nazi Germany, however, countries like Britain and the United States were often unwilling to take them in. German Jews became permanent exiles, traveling from country to country seeking asylum; many were sent back to Germany and almost certain death.
“Refugee Blues” was written in 1939—before the Holocaust began in full force. Auden did not yet know the full scope of the crisis or the full horrors of the Nazi regime. But his poem powerfully anticipates the Nazi's crimes and levels a fierce and righteous critique against countries in Europe and the Americas that refused to open their doors to Jewish refugees, putting them in a permanent state of legal limbo or, worse, sending them back to face their persecutors. The poem suggests that these countries should carry some of the blame for what happened to Jewish refugees after—and because—they were turned away.
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More “Refugee Blues” Resources
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External Resources
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An Introduction to the Holocaust — A detailed introduction to the Holocaust from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, with links to many other resources on the history of the Holocaust.
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W. H. Auden's Life — A detailed biography of the British poet from the Poetry Foundation.
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"Poetry Makes Nothing Happen" — An essay from the Boston Review on W. H. Auden's life-long struggle with whether or not to write politically engaged poems.
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"Refugee Blues" Read Aloud — Shelia Hancock recites "Refugee Blues" for Holocaust Memorial Day, 2017.
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German Jewish Refugees, 1933-1939 — An article from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on the fate of Jewish refugees in the 1930s.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by W. H. Auden
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