Undzer shtetl brennt, yiddish ghetto holocaust song (1938)

A song written after the progrom in Przytyk in 1938. During WWII it become an athem of fighting Jews in the Ghettos. The poet Mordechaj Gebirtig appeals to his brothers and sisters not to stand passively and watch helplessy how their town is burning but to seize what they can and put down the fire, even with their own blood.

Mordechaj Gebirtig is one of the most important names linked to Yiddish folk song tradition. With simplicity, humour and warmth, the carpenter from Cracow has created through his songs a document of Kazimierz, the Jewish district of Cracow, with its poverty, despair and misery, as well as love, happiness and hope. The Jewish world of Kazimierz disappeared with the Holocaust. Mordechaj Gebirtig suffered its fate. In 1942 he was shot by Nazis in Cracow ghette, as he was being deported to Belzec death camp.

Performed by Norwegian-Jewish actress and singer Bente Kahan, from the album Farewell Cracow.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• brennt
• yiddish
• holocaust
• song
• jewish
• athem
• shoah
• poland
• cracow
• krakow
• kazimierz
• przytyk
• 1938
• poetry
• poem
• bente
• kahan
• sad

[BytomGirl]

I am Jewish an I sang this song at the Jewish theater in Poland. I really appreciate people like you, thank you for your wonderful comment. It doesn't matter if we are German or Jewish as long as we are good people and know what is right and what is wrong.

Everything best to you!

[fschall1]

shalom my grandfather came from Biala Podlaska before the war. There was one survivor my great grandma out of over 60 people. We have nowhere to morn for the lost.

[Goodiesfanful]

Pity this song doesn't have English subtitles.

[PressureDrop89]

@dcarpenter1625 Please follow him, Asshole

[Nadav34]

Oh, the old yiddish language is no more.. but out of the ashes is now a modern revived and somewhat spoken language.. do you know there are yiddish words now for modern things, for example: computer science, programming, etc.. I am a member of Yugntruf - youth for Yiddish in New York and we have lots of young people jews and non-jews who speak, read, and write Yiddish.. this is in USA of course.

[Nadav34]

I am also thinking that had the Holocaust have not have happened, do you think Yiddish today would have been a majority language for most of the Jews, or would the same thing have happened - imagine 6 million survived the war, gave birth to many many children.. the year is 2010 - would yiddish still be spoken on the street, or would Polish have been the vernacular?

This is "what if", but I am not giving up. I love Yiddish and will continue to speak it.

[BytomGirl]

@Nadav34 Culture absolutely NO but we have to face it that the old language will never revive... I don;t think it has anything to do with nazis winning...it's just progress, people don;t want to live in a small group and be isolated, they want to be a part of the country where they live and speak that country;s language, it's normakl. It might have been different when there were large communities but they are gone and few people who are left in eastern Europe don;' want to live like hermits.

[Nadav34]

So, am I doing a great thing by doing this? I mean.. we can't let the language and culture die... it is 1000 years old.. if we allow this to die, then the nazis have surely won and we have lost a very huge part of our culture.. Israeli culture is not Jewish culture per say... but my parents didn't come off the boat or plane spaaking hebrew either.

But it does seem Israel has a nice Yiddish establishment in the universities there.. I know, I have a friend who speaks to me in Yiddish.

[BytomGirl]

@Nadav34 I don;t see it happening, even Jewish people in Poland who are now younger don;t speak Yiddish anymore and are asimilated into Polish culture...only few older people still speak it..trust me, I know...I have lived there and go there occasionally and even Jewish clubs are the thing of the past or if they exist, everybody speaks Polish.... it's just wishful thinking.

[Nadav34]

But from what I gather it seems quite a few non-jewish Poles are interested in the language and culture of our people.. This is very hopeful as there is a possibility of the language being revived in Poland, though not as it used to be.. but still this brings the possibility that Yiddish does indeed have a future, and perhaps maybe the Polish nation is waking up and realizing that we Jews did provide a very huge culture for Poland.. Its my hope this trend will continue.

[BytomGirl]

@Nadav34 Not many my dear friend, noit many. My father's entire family was murdered in Ukraine, he was the only survivor only because he was in POW camp after fighting in Polish Army. Imagine how many people would be now if those 6 million were not murdered, all the children and grandchildren, how many artists, proffesors, scientists, doctors.... how rich Jewish culture would have been. As a child I too spoke Yiddish as my grandparents always spoke it at home in Russia and then in Poland.