A chapter of the encyclopedia

Songs of the Holocaust.

Песни Катастрофы

Five songs written in the ghettos of Vilna and Lodz, and one sung in Auschwitz. Each one has its own page here: the story with its sources, the Russian words of Olga Anikina, the same words rendered line by line into English so anyone can follow them, and a short guide for parents and teachers.

Why these songs are carried into English

The melodies travel on their own. The words need help.

These songs were written in Yiddish and in Polish, by people who were killed, for listeners who were killed. What survived was written down after the war, mostly by Shmerke Kaczerginski, who came out of the Vilna ghetto and spent years collecting the songs of the ghettos and the camps. That is the only reason we can still sing them.

A song lives while it is understood. Sung in a language almost nobody in the room reads, it becomes a beautiful sound and a closed door. So the words were carried first into Russian by the poet Olga Anikina, and on these pages they are carried again, line by line, into English. The English is for understanding only, never for performance: it is printed beside the Russian so a listener can follow exactly what is being sung, word for word, and hear the difference between the two.

Nothing on these pages is invented. Where a song's author or origin is not confirmed by an archive, the page says so plainly and names nobody. Where a widely told story exists but the archives do not support it, the page tells the story and marks it as an account rather than as fact.

Before you press play

The chapter as a whole suits listeners of about ten and up, and every page carries its own age note, because the five songs are not equally hard. Summer Day is a lullaby and the gentlest way in. Yisrolik is a boy who refuses to be pitied and works well from about eight. Tango of Auschwitz names the place and the machinery directly, and is for twelve and up.

There are no photographs of camps here, no numbers, and no descriptions of what was done to people. These are family pages. Each song page ends with a short block called For parents and educators: what to say before, what to ask afterwards, and what to leave alone.

The chapter

Five songs, gentlest first.

Press a card to open the song: the recording, the story with its sources, the words in Russian and line by line in English, and the guide for parents and teachers.

Yisrolik song cover▶
Vilna ghetto, 1942 · Age 8+
Yisrolik / Исролик

A boy sells cigarettes on a ghetto street corner. He owns nothing, he can sing and whistle, and he will not be pitied. Words by Leyb Rozental, music by Misha Veksler.

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Summer Day song cover▶
Vilna, in dialogue · Age 9+
Summer Day / Летний день

A mother sings her son to sleep and tells him the thunder is far away, beyond the river. An original Russian poem standing beside a song made in the Vilna ghetto by Rikle Glezer.

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Spring in the Ghetto song cover▶
Vilna ghetto, 1943 · Age 10+
Spring in the Ghetto / Весна в гетто

Known in Yiddish as Friling. Shmerke Kaczerginski wrote it after his wife died in the ghetto, to a tango by Avrom Brudno. The spring keeps arriving and it means nothing anymore.

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Children on the Train song cover▶
Lodz ghetto, 1942 · Age 10+
Children on the Train / Едут дети

Miriam Harel was seventeen and looked after thirty children. When she learned they were to be deported she wrote this for them, to the melody of a Polish children's song.

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Tango of Auschwitz song cover▶
Auschwitz · Age 12+
Tango of Auschwitz / Танго Освенцима

A pre war Polish tango that prisoners sang inside the camp, carried into Yiddish and written down by Shmerke Kaczerginski in 1948. The hardest page in the chapter.

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The whole chapter as a playlist on YouTube, in the Russian recordings by Elechka.

How these pages are built

Sources first, then the song.

Every history on these pages is written from published archives and named at the foot of the page, so a teacher can check it and a student can quote it. The two that carry most of this chapter are the World ORT project Music and the Holocaust and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, alongside Yad Vashem, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, the National Library of Israel, and Gila Flam's study of the music of the Lodz ghetto.

The Russian texts are the work of the poet Olga Anikina and are reproduced exactly as she wrote them. The English beside them is a plain rendering for meaning, made so the Russian can be followed line by line. It is not a singing version and it is not offered as one.

For schools, museums and communities

Made to be taught from, not only listened to.

These pages are free to use in classrooms, memorial programs, museum displays and family evenings. Print them, quote them, show them on a screen, sing the Russian and read the English aloud beside it. If your institution needs a different format, a translation into another language, or a version of a page for a particular age group, write and ask.

If you find an error, or your collection holds a source that would make one of these pages more accurate, we want to hear about it. Corrections are made quickly and contributors are credited by name.

Write to us: doublesign28@gmail.com. Read the rest of the encyclopedia, or browse the Russian wing.