Song of the Vilna Partisans
Remembrance Day recalls the veterans of past wars and does honour to their memory. Their youthful sacrifice, their zeal in lending themselves to overturning the dread plans of oppressors, the enemies of freedom and justness in society. To them we owe our freedom, the lives we share in joy and happiness, which many of these fighting men could not themselves experience.Those that died in combat gave up their lives for the rest of us, and those that brought back home with them haunted memories of those left behind and the stark brutality of war, have lived with their demons, although their ranks are diminishing year by year. It's when thinking of their valour, their courage, their bravery in the face of the battle at hand, that thoughts also turn to the helpless civilians who lives were lost.
Above all, as a Jew, thoughts turn to extended family, relatives never known for they perished while we survived. Perished in the greatness of their numbers; the number of lives arrested more than equal to the entire Jewish population of the State of Israel. In fact, world Jewry has never recovered the promise of their population status within the world at large.
Hope and courage were never too far from the spirits undiminished by the atrocities that signalled their victimization by the Nazi hordes and their east European enablers. Fascism did its utmost to annihilate Jews in a sweeping network of detention, ghettoization, deprivation, de-humanization, and mass murder. Yet there were those who fought back.
One such was a Jew by the name of Hirsh Glik who fought with the resistance. He wrote an unforgettable paeon to his peoples' bravery and courage, giving them hope for the future. Expressing the torments of the soul and the spirit of a people abandoned, embattled, forfeited. But whose spirit of resistance against all odds ensured the survival of a remnant, and the resurgence of their purpose in this abiding world.
Zog not keyn mol
Zog nit keyn mol az du geyst dem letstn veg,
Khotsh himeln blayene farshtein bloye teg,
Kumen vet nokh undzer oysgebenkte sho,
S'vet a poyk ton undzer trot -- mir zaynen do!
Never say that there is only death for you
Though leaden clouds may be concealing skies of blue
Because the hour that we have hungered for is near;
Beneath our tread the earth shall tremble: We are here!
Fun grinem palmenland biz vaysn land fun shney,
Mir kumen on mit undzer payn, mit undzer vey,
Un vu gefain s'iz a shprits fun undzer blut,
Shprotsn vet dort undzer gvure, undzer mut.
From land of palm tree to the far-off land of snow
We shall be coming with our torment and our woe,
And everywhere our blood has sunk into the earth
Shall our bravery, our vigour blossom forth!
S'vet di morgnzun bagildn undz dem haynt,
Un der nekhtn vet farshvindn mitn faynd,
Nor oyb farzamen vet di zun in dem kayor --
Vi a parol zol geyn dos lid fun dor tsu dor.
We'll have the morning sun to set our day aglow,
And all our yesterdays shall vanish with the foe,
And if the time is long before the sun appears,
Then let this song go like a signal through the years.
Dos lid geshribn iz mit blut un nit mit blay,
S'iz not keyn lidl fun a foygl af der fray,
Dos hot a fold tsvishn faindike vent
Dos lid gezungen mit naganes in di hent!
This song was written with our blood and not with lead;
It's not a song that birds sing overhead.
It was a people, among toppling barricades,
That sang this song of ours with pistols and grenades.
To zog nit keyn mol az du geyst dem letstn veg,
Khotsh kimlen blayene farshtein bloye teg,
Kumen vet nokh undzer oysgebenkte sho --
S'vet a poyk ton undzer trot -- mir zaynen do!
Labels: Anti-Semitism, Heroes and Villains, Terrorism
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, November 11, 2007
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