sim-Libe”).
During family celebrations, Gebirtig was truly full of happiness and youth. He was full of joy and delight when he married off his first daughter. He stood with his arms open and laughed loudly and, beaming and shining, sang out the happiness that had been bestowed upon him. This was the happiness of every Jewish father who sees their children married:
“Play, musicians, play with gusto,
My first daughter is getting married;
Oh, only God knows our joy,
And others who have daughters”.
Just as, in every moment of sorrow, Mordechai Gebirtig's songs entwined a strand of joy, in every celebration he entwined a note of sadness. Every Jew carries in his heart a continuous pain, pain from which there was no healing. So Gebirtig, while dancing at his daughter’s wedding, sang with tears in his eyes:
“When I will hear the last music played,
Will I stop in tears, thinking:
I gave away already the last daughter,
What is the meaning in all this?”
In all his songs and poems Gebirtig spoke from his heart. His topics and motifs had their roots in the same wells of life from which all his brothers in art drank. His songs became near and dear to all the Polish Jews. His poetry was deeply human and Jewish at the same time and its content reflected the individual and spiritual struggle of every Jewish person in Poland. This poetry’s content, together with the content of the other Jewish poetry, became a mirror of Polish Jewry.
The Popularity of Mordechai Gebirtig in Poland before the war was great. He was beloved by all parts of society, beginning with the intelligentsia, who found in him a genuine Yiddish poet, and ending with the common Jew, who saw in him the genuine folk singer – one of them, who sung about their pain and joy in day-to-day life.
At the time of the war
September 1939. The Nazi beast spread itself over the Polish towns. Anxiety and horror, injustice and disgrace, forced labor and the yellow patches, terror and death – became daily phenomena. The Jews stood defenseless and helpless against the iron wall of the enemy. Meantime, in Krakow, Asmodeus was rampant. Gebirtig was sitting at his home, crying bitterly and working in pain on his new songs, songs of loneliness and death.
It was the eve of Yom Kippur. For some time he had the habit on this night to go for a walk with his close friend Moyshe Leib Shternfeld and visit synagogues in Krakow to hear the old prayer of “Kol Nidrei." Usually on this holy evening there was “in the Jewish streets a noise, movement in all directions” – Jews going to worship. Even gentiles felt a tremor along with the Jews on the Day of Judgment.
But on the eve of the Yom Kippur of 1939, Gebirtig did not go for a walk. He just wrote a song under a title “Eve of Yom-Kippur” and added a warm dedication: “A gift to my dear friend Moyshe Leib Shternfeld and his lovely wife Sorele. The synagogues were empty, shameful and flawed, and the locks on their gates look like chains on human hands. Instead of the prayers was heard the stamping of the soldier’s boots."
For a while Mordechai Gebirtig did not realize the horror that the new situation will bring and that the terrible beginning is just the tip of the iceberg.
He could not part with the old traditional Jewish weapon - confidence. So, in his song “Shifrele’s Portrait," he argued with his daughter, whose portrait hang over his bed. In the middle of the night, thinking about his daughter, he could hear her voice from the portrait…
He was indignant with the way the Poles treated their fellow citizen Jews, and in his song “It Pains…” asks with perplexity:
“Sons and daughters of Poland,
Whose land one day
Will be ashamed of them,
Are laughing loudly,
When seeing in the street
How our common enemy
Is mistreating the Jews”.
In his song “Moments of Confidence” he goes on saying with optimism:
Rejoice! Do not worry,
Do not walk gloomy around.
Be confident and patient,
Take everything in stride…
The situation has soon changed and there was no more room for illusions. He had to leave his home along with all the rest of the Krakow Jews, and move to “Lag