Hirsh Glik
From; The Terrible Choice
Some Contemporary Jewish Responses to the Holocaust
http://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/terrible_choice/ter002.html#Glik
On 1 May 1943, a group of Jewish writers and poets met in the Vilna
Ghetto for an evening devoted to "Spring in Yiddish literature". The
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was still raging and the meeting was filled
with the spirit of the ongoing battle. At the meeting, the poet
Shmaryahu Kaczerginski met his fellow poet Hirsh Glik, and was
informed that Glik had written a new poem. They met the next morning.
"Now listen carefully, I'll sing it for you," Glik said. Kaczerginski
recalled: "He began to sing it softly, but full of excitement. His
eyes glowed with little sparks. `The hour for which we yearned will
come anew.' Where did he get his faith? His voice became firmer. He
tapped out the rhythm with his foot, as if he was marching."
The song that Hirsh Glik sang that May morning - "Zog Nisht Keynmol" -
was to spread with amazing speed throughout the ghettos and camps,
becoming a symbol of hope and defiance. Quickly adopted by Jewish
partisans, it is sometimes known as the "Song of the Partisans",
inspiring Jews to fight if they could, but if they could not fight, at
least to survive. After the war, the song was taken up by Jewish
communities around the world, where it has been sung as a memorial to
Jews martyred during the Shoah, even being included by some families
in their Seder night Passover service. A transliterated version of the
song in Yiddish follows:
Zog nisht keyn mol, az du geyst dem letstn veg,
Khotsh himlen blayene farshteln bloye teg, -
Kumen vet nokh undzer oysgebenkte sho,
S'vet a poyk ton undzer trot - mir zaynen do!
Kumen vet nokh undzer oysgebenkte sho,
S'vet a poyk ton undzer trot - mir zaynen do!
Fun grinem palmenland biz vaysn land fun shney,
Mir kumen on mit undzer payn, mit undzer vey;
Un vu gefaln iz a shprits fun undzer blut,
Shprotsn vet dort undzer gvure, undzer mut!
Un vu gefaln iz a shprits fun undzer blut,
Shprotsn vet dort undzer gvure, undzer mut!
S'vet di morgnzun bagildn undz dem haynt,
Un der nekht vet farshvindn mit dem faynt,
Nor oyb farzamen vet di zun in der kayor,
Vi a parol zol geyn dos lid fun dor tsu dor!
Nor oyb farzamen vet di zun in der kayor,
Vi a parol zol geyn dos lid fun dor tsu dor!
Dos lid geshribn iz mit blut, un mit blay,
S'iz nit keyn lidl fun a foygl oyf der fray, -
Dos hot a folk tsvishn falndike vent
Dos lid gezungen mit naganes in di hent!...
Dos hot a folk tsvishn falndike vent
Dos lid gezungen mit naganes in di hent!...
To zog nit keyn mol, az du geyst dem letstn veg,
Khotsh himlen blayene farshteln bloye teg;
Kumen vet nokh undzer oysgebenkte sho -
Es vet a poyk ton undzer trot: mir zaynen do!
Kumen vet nokh undzer oysgebenkte sho -
Es vet a poyk ton undzer trot: mir zaynen do!
Translation from one language to another is always difficult if all of
the nuances of the original are to be retained, but the task is even
more demanding where poetry is concerned, because of the requirement
that the translation scans and rhymes (where appropriate), as the
author intended. What follows is one of many attempts to render Zog
Nisht Keynmol into English. The translation may not be precise, for
the reasons indicated, but the theme of the song remains clear:
Never say that you are going your last way,
Though lead-filled skies above blot out the blue of day.
The hour for which we long will certainly appear,
The earth shall thunder 'neath our tread that we are here!
The hour for which we long will certainly appear,
The earth shall thunder 'neath our tread that we are here!
From lands of green palm trees to lands all white with snow,
We are coming with our pain and with our woe,
And where'er a spurt of our blood did drop,
Our courage will again sprout from that spot.
And where'er a spurt of our blood did drop,
Our courage will again sprout from that spot.
For us the morning sun will radiate the day,
And the enemy and past will fade away,
But should the dawn delay or sunrise wait too long,
Then let all future generations sing this song.
But should the dawn delay or sunrise wait too long,
Then let all future generations sing this song.
This song was written with our blood and not with lead,
This is no song of free birds flying overhead,
But a people amid crumbling walls did stand,
They stood and sang this song with rifles held in hand.
But a people amid crumbling walls did stand,
They stood and sang this song with rifles held in hand.
So never say that you are going your last way,
Though lead-filled skies above blot out the blue of day.
The hour for which we long will certainly appear,
The earth shall thunder 'neath our tread that we are here!
The hour for which we long will certainly appear,
The earth shall thunder 'neath our tread that we are here!
Hirsh Glik was born in 1922 in Vilna into a poor family; his father
was a used clothes dealer. Acknowledged as an outstanding young
author, he began to write poems in Hebrew when he was only thirteen,
later writing mainly in Yiddish. Because of his family's poverty he
was forced to end his studies prematurely and become an apprentice in
a paper business, later working in a hardware store. Following the
occupation of Vilna by the Germans on 26 June 1941, Glik and his
father were among those Jews arbitrarily seized and sent to work in
the peat bogs at Biala-Waka and Rzesza. Even in captivity, Glik
continued to write. In early 1943 the Biala-Waka camp was liquidated
and Glik was sent to the Vilna Ghetto, where he joined the United
Partisan Organization (Fareynegte Partizaner Organitzatsye – FPO) and
continued with his writing.
Among the songs he wrote was "Shtil, Di Nacht Iz Oysgeshternt", which
recounted the heroic deeds of Vitka Kempner, a female resistance
fighter, who together with two companions, Itzik Matzkevitch and
Moishe Brause, blew up a German military transport carrying 200 German
soldiers on the outskirts of Vilna in 1942, the first successful
diversionary act of sabotage by the Jewish partisans of Vilna. Abba
Kovner, married to Vitka Kempner, recorded her bravery at the trial of
Adolf Eichmann:
"… In this courtroom, there sits a woman who spent a certain time
outside the ghetto with Aryan papers [living as] a teacher of Catholic
children in a secure place. And she, and others like her, were asked
whether they were prepared to return to the ghetto; they were asked by
comrades in the underground to leave their place of security in order
to be partners in our fate in the War and to sacrifice themselves,
with no chance of returning, and through this gate - where according
to the announcement, according this document, whoever went through it
in order to buy food and to bring in a kilogram of potatoes was shot
to death - on her person she transferred explosives, dynamite.
And she went through the ghetto gate once, twice and three times and
walked, a distance of 30 kilometres, in order to blow up a German
military train. And she blew it up, the first German train to be blown
up in the entire country of Lithuania; no train had been blown up, not
by the Poles, and not by the Lithuanians, and not by the Russians, but
one was blown up by a Jewess who, after she had done it, had no base
to which she could return, unlike any other fighter.
She was obliged, after three days and nights of scouting and action,
to return to the ghetto with injured feet and to pass through guard
posts, and she got back. Imagine for yourselves what we, who sent her,
experienced; what we experienced that night, for fear that she would
not return, that she might be caught. This would have meant that not
only she and her companions, but possibly the entire ghetto would have
to pay the price. What was the significance of that day, of the
challenge which no fighting man has encountered, at least in modern
times - collective responsibility? In other words, for what I do in
defence of my honour and my life, my mother, my brothers and my
sisters, old people and children will be held to account.
Nevertheless, we did it."
It was the first of many acts of resistance in which Vitka Kempner was
to be involved. The Yiddish transliteration and an English translation
of "Shtil, Di Nacht Iz Oysgeshternt" follow:
Shtil, di nacht iz oysgeshternt,
Un der frost - er hot gebrent;
Tsi gedenkstu vi ich hob dich gelernt
Haltn a shpayer in di hent.
A moyd, a peltsl un a beret,
Un halt in hant fest a nagan,
A moyd mit a sametenem ponim
Hit op dem soynes karavan.
Getsilt, geshosn un getrofn
Hot ir kleyninker pistoyl,
An oto a fulinkn mit vofn
Farhaltn hot zi mit eyn koyl.
Fartog fun vald aroysgekrochn,
Mit shney-girlandn oyf di hor,
Gemutikt fun kleyninkn n'tsochn
Far undzer nayem, frayen dor.
Silence, the night is all be-starred
And the frost burned strong.
Do you remember when I taught you
To hold a machine-gun in your hands.
A lass, a fur jacket and a beret,
Holding a pistol tight in her hand,
A lass with a velvet face
Watches over the enemy's caravan.
Aimed, fired and - hit,
With her dear little pistol,
She stopped a car - a nice one full of arms -
With one bullet.
At daybreak, she crawled out of the woods
With snow garlands on her hair,
Encouraged by the precious little victory
For our new, free generation.
The references to frost and snow were Glik's embellishments. The poet
used three words, "shpayer","nagan", "pistoyl", to describe the same
object, an automatic pistol. It has been suggested that shpayer was a
common word in the Vilna region, nagan was the equivalent Russian
word, and pistoyl was the German term. The use of all three within one
song demonstrated the presence of Jews from all over Europe, often
herded together by the German occupiers within one ghetto, one
concentration or death camp.
On 1 September 1943, the FPO unit to which Glik belonged was captured
and he was deported to Estonia, initially to the camp at Narva,
subsequently to that at Goldfilz. Even in the camps Glik continued to
create, reciting his poems to his fellow prisoners who memorized them
and passed them on. Some written copies of his poems were buried in
the Vilna Ghetto, but the great majority of his works are presumed
lost. In summer 1944, together with eight other FPO men, Glik escaped
from Goldfilz. Meir Mark Dworzecki testified: "In Estonia I went
through the concentration camps of Narva, Kureme 1, Kureme 2,
Goldfilz, Kureme, Lagedi, until the day arrived when we felt that they
were about to remove us from the concentration camps of Estonia.
There, too, an underground was created; amongst the members of the
underground was Hirsh Glik, the same young man whom I mentioned as the
composer of the partisans' anthem. One night we agreed between us that
every hour we would leave in groups for the forest. On the sound of
the watchword, the first group went out - amongst them was Hirsh
Glik." The advancing Soviet Army was in the region and the intention
was to join the local partisans. But Glik and all of his companions
disappeared, probably captured and executed by German soldiers in the
area.
During the years of Nazi persecution, Glik had deliberately composed
poems that were intended to be sung - to raise morale, to encourage
the partisans and to strengthen the Jews' faith and hope in the
future. His most famous song "Zog Nisht Keynmol" based on a melody by
two Soviet Jewish composers, Dimitri and Daniel Pokras, has been
translated into many different languages and remains a lasting
monument to the triumph of the human spirit, a beacon to illuminate a
world of darkness.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sources:
Gutman, Israel, ed. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Macmillan
Publishing Company, New York, 1990
Gilbert, Martin. The Holocaust – The Jewish Tragedy, William Collins
Sons & Co. Limited, London, 1986
http://www.leonarda.com/
http://www.stolaf.edu/
http://www.stolaf.edu/people/hend/songs/ShtilDiNakht.html
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-027-06.html
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-027-09.html
http://savethemusic.com/yiddish/bin/music.cgi?Page=zognitkeynmol&Song=about_zog