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User Name Thread Name Subject Posted
Mark Cohen Lyr ADD: Yiddish Partisan Song (Zog Nit Keyn Mol) (24) DTADD: Partizaner Lid (Hirsh Glik) 07 May 03


Len, if you're talking about the song by Hirsh Glik, "Partizaner Lid", here are the words:

Shtil, di nacht iz oysgeshternt
Un der frost hot shtark gebrent
Tsi gedenkstu vi ich hob dich gelernt
Haltn a shpayer in di hent?

A moyd, a peltsl un a beret
Un halt in hant fest a nagan
A moyd mit a sametenem ponim
Hit op dem soyne's karavan

Getsilt, geshosn un getrofn!
Hot ir kleyninker pistoyl
An oto, a fulinkn mit vofn
Farhaltn hot zi mit eyn koyl

Fartog, fun vald aroysgekrochn
Mit shney girlandn oyf di hor
Gemutikt fun kleyninkn nitsochn
Far undzer nayem, frayen dor

Here is a singable translation by Ruth Rubin. (I'm not able to translate it myself.)

Silence, and a starry night
Frost crackling, fine as sand
Remember how I taught you
To hold a gun in your hand?

In fur jacket and beret
Clutching a hand grenade
A girl whose skin is velvet
Ambushes a cavalcade

Aim, fire, shoot--and hit!
She, with he pistol small
Halts an autoful
Arms and all

Morning, emerging from the wood
In her hair a snow carnation
Proud of her small victory
For the new, free generation


According to Rubin, the song was written to commemorate the partisans of the Vilna ghetto, led by Itzik Matzkevitsh and Vitke Kempner, who in 1942 blew up a German ammunition column on the outskirts of the city.

Aloha,
Mark


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