Ikh Vill Tzu Gayn Amol (Sometimes I Want To Go Up)
Poem by Rachel Korn
Set to music by Yale Strom
English translation by Seymour Mayne
Recorded by Yale Strom on the album, Garden of Yidn
Recorded in Yiddish, but the liner notes have only the English translation,
and my Yiddish is not up to the task of transcribing from the recording.

Editorial comment: the vocalist, Elizabeth Schwartz (Yale Strom's wife),
is absolutely top-notch, in a league with Chava Alberstein.

Sometimes I want to go up
on tip toe
to a strange house
and feel the walls with my hands -
what kind of clay baked in the bricks,
what kind of wood is in the door,
what kind of god has pitched his tent here,
to guard it from misfortune and ruin?

What kind of swallow under the roof
has built its nest from straw and earth,
and what kind of angels disguised as men
came here as guests?

What holy men came up to meet them
bringing them basins of water
to wash the dust from their feet,
the dust of earthly roads?

And what blessings did they have
the children - from big to small,
that it could protect and guard them
from Belzec, Maidanek, Treblinka?

From just such a house,
Fenced in with a painted railing,
in the middle of trees and blooming flowerbeds,
blue, gold flame
there came out - the murderer of my people,
Of my mother
Of my mother