he 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 to musical notes. The only song which is not included in the collection “It Burns” was “In The Moments Of Dispair." This song was published for the first time in September, 1952 in the Johannesburg monthly journal, “South-Africa." It came out at that time because Melekh Perlin (M. Bakaltshik) borrowed the song from Hofman’s daughters and copied it. The beginning of the song implies that Gebirtig wrote it a year after the war began and, surprisingly, Mordechai suddenly feels so hopeless:
A year of war passed,
A terrible, overwhelming war!
How to live through it,
How to survive?
In the painful five lines he makes a strong complaint to G_d and comes to a sad conclusion:
Our prayer is futile,
It won’t achieve God’s tent.
The Haven is closed
As are the human hearts.
He has still more doubts, which opened for “the secret” for him, that “there is no justice, no G_d." He ends the song in helpless despair:
There is no consolation,
Just suffering and pain.
What are we coming to?
What will happen to us?
There is an opinion that Mordechai Gebirtig, usually an optimist, in the very beginning of the war succumbed to a deep pessimism, which we see in the “Moments Of Dispair". Nevertheless, seeing the pessimism around, he forced himself to return to his “and you chose life” and was looking for a ray of hope for himself and others.
Gebirtig’s Musical Themes
Mordechai Gebirtig did not create his compositions sitting at the piano or holding the tuning fork. He was not an educated musician, did not learn to play any musical instruments and did not know solfeggio or any elementary basics of musical theory and composition, but judging by his achievements, one get the impression that he was well oriented in Jewish melodies as well as in the complicated use of rhythm and meter.
The only instrument he played was the shepherd’s pipe. That was the popular Polish pipe, on which the Polish shepherds played their sad melodies of unachievable desire during summer evenings. In his youth he often played on his pipe. Sometimes he was even invited 