iewniki," a village in that area. There he wrote a tearful good-bye song, “Farewell, Krakow”:
Farewell to you.
The wagon is waiting for me at the door.
The wild enemy chases me,
Like one would chase a dog,
And forces me to leave you”.
All the songs that Gebirtig wrote between November of 1939 and November 1940 were written with deep breath. He collected all his inner strength to restrain himself and hide his own bitterness. He did not want to show signs of despair, but in Lagiewniki he sounded a different tune. The strange roof over his head, the cold and hardship, the spreading rumors about death sentences for hundreds of Jews, the mood of (Tisha B’Av) Ninth of Av that filled the Jewish hearts – all this changed his violin completely. The major scale disappeared and replaced were by the sad and gloomy tones of lamentation.
The first song written in Lagiewniki was “I Have Already For A While…” He wrote it in January of 1941 and dedicated to his daughter Hawa’le.
I have not heard already for a while,
For a long while,
The voice of a violin, -
This is how he began the song and he continued it describing what he actually heard instead:
I did hear and keep hearing today
How everything around laments, bemoans and cries.
Mourning her only child
A mother cries her eyes blind from tears.
In grief and sorrow
A woman cries, young, but aged and grey.
The fields are crying, the forest cries,
The whole world laments
Every fallen person,
Only the devil laughs with pleasure…
During that same Lagiewniki period he bemoans: “Once I Used to Have a Home” in songs “Sunbeams," “My Dream," “Mourning Cries” and “ The Day Of Vengeance." The last song, dated from January 5, 1942, expresses the grief and sorrow which depressed his gentle soul. It seems he could not keep the accumulated feelings to himself and burst out screaming:
Revenge for our sufferings and pain,
For the blood spilled by our enemies;
Revenge for those, whose remains
May not be ever found.
Revenge for the deeds not heard in Sodom
Against widows, mothers and orphans.
The 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 t