blood of the millions of victims
Will scream of revenge from the ground.
In 1942, in the beginning of Spring, Mordechai was back in the Krakow ghetto. There he met his friends, the famous artist Abraham Neyman and the musician Yuliush Hofman. They threw themselves into creative work in order to forget the hopelessness of the situation. It was already evident that they were doomed to death, as if they could smell the smoke from the crematoria.
Identification photo of Mordechai Gebirtig, August 1940.
USHMM, courtesy of Zydowski Instytut Historyczny Instytut Naukowo-Badawczy
The fields and forest in Spring, the blooming May, moved his heart, but the thoughts of “gun powder and lead” in the air banished his joy and so, instead of extolling the Spring, he mourned the ghetto, where “it is autumnal and bleak, as in a house of mourning". He saw the world “as one large cemetery". In the song “In Ghetto," written in that period, he depicts with trembling hands the moments of terror and dread, the horrible days and sleepless nights when everyone was waiting for the terrible message.
“Who will be struck by fate this night:
Your relative or you…”
He knew “that death is just a matter of queue – today you, tomorrow –I”…however, he still whispers a song of hope and faith: “Sun, Sun, Ear of Grain”
Children, be joyful today,
You see, how lovely shines the sun.
Fields and woods are green and blooming,
The bird cheerfully sings its song.
But this was just a fleeting ray of joy. His days were nearing to the end. The Angel of Death was hovering over his head. As did the others around him, Mordechai Gebirtig realized that the hours of his life were few. His optimism evaporated and the usually gentle and sentimental poet turned sarcastic and poignant. In one of his last, if not the very last, poems, “It Is Good," -we see him kind of laughing out of suffering:
It is good, it is good, it is good.
The Jews are yelling. It is good.
The enemy, the wild one,
Walks savagely and fast –
And ruins life.
But the Jews are yelling: It is good.
And the Jews are beaming: It is good.
It is fine, it is well,
Better cannot be.
The last period in the ghetto lasted just a few months, from March until June of 1942. The deep tragedy of this period did not deter the poet from his work. He even took care that people would sing his songs, and not only in Krakow, but in other places, too. Yonas Turkoow tells about this in his book “The Extinguished Stars": "Diana Blumenfeld in the Warsaw ghetto received from Gebirtig, from the Krakow ghetto, his two new songs. He sent her a letter in which he mentioned, "I hope that my fate will make it possible for me to hear you singing my songs!"
Regretfully this was not predestined for him.
On the 4th of June 1942 the Nazis organized a large scale Action (“Akcja”) in the ghetto. He was deported from his home and along with many others was driven to the cattle cars that were prepared to transport the Jews to the death camp Bełżec. During this “action” Mordechai Gebirtig and his close friend Abram Neiman were shot by the Nazis from behind and fell on the road next to each other.
As I learned from Moyshe Leyb Shternfeld, who was very active in the cultural life in Krakow, and during the war time kept strong contacts with Gebirtig, that the poet had written much more during the occupation than what survived and became available for us. Most of the poems that were saved were placed under the authority of the Jewish Historical Committee in Krakow right after the war's end. In 1946 they were published as a book titled “It Burns," edited by Mikhal Borwitsh, Gela Rost and Yosef Wolf. In the introduction written by Yosef Wolf we read:
“The manuscripts and sheet music in this publication were obtained by the Jewish Historical Committee in Krakow from Ms. Julia Hoffman who, with self-sacrifice, preserved the heritage of Mordechai Gebirtig.”
As I found out from other sources, Julia and her sister Hannah were daughters of Juliush Hofman, who was a dear close friend of Gebirtig, his musical adviser, and used to transcribe Gebirtig’s compositions t