Songs to remember Auschwitz 60th

Subject: RE: Songs to remember Auschwitz 60th
From: JulieF
Date: 31 Jan 05 - 06:02 AM

John C - The woman with the violin in the gypsy area in Auschwitz was part of a whole program where mainly classical music was played in the various areas of Auschwitz. The music was varied including modern, music composed by people who were murdered there and specially commisioned pieces. There were also interviews with musicians who played in the Auschwitz orchestras.   It was a very moving program and I wondered how the musicians felt about playing in the locations. Did it help them add to their interpretation of the music or was it an influence that they had to overcome before they played?

Unfortunately I don't know anymore about the individual performers or the music.

Julie

Subject: RE: Songs to remember Auschwitz 60th
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 30 Jan 05 - 11:57 PM

Children of Poland, by Si Kahn.
Zog Nit Keynmol.
Es Brent.

Subject: RE: Songs to remember Auschwitz 60th
From: GUEST,The Shambles
Date: 29 Jan 05 - 05:33 AM

This song is an account of a UK Channel 4 TV programme, from which the song gets it's title. It was the story of four young 'Neo-Nazis', from different European countries, taken on a train journey, meeting some Holocaust survivors and ending up at Auschwitz.   You may have thought that this would have changed their views a little, but unfortunately this did not happen. Possibly and perhaps because they were taken as a group of four - rather than as individuals?

Another Journey By Train

You enter the 'Gates of Hell' - and you deny the fires,
Stand among the ghosts of thousands - who you brand as liars.
Why do you deny it - for you know the truth inside?
It's not a matter of opinion - how these people died.

Heads of stone,
Hearts of ice,
It's only the truth you sacrifice.

Five men on the corner - oh how it tears my heart,
Alone with his memories - the old man stands apart.
You refuse to hear him - for he doesn't count you say,
Builders of the 'New Tomorrow' - does the past get in your way?

Hearts of ice,
Heads of stone.
So many people, so far from home.

One small lady and four big men - a brave thing to do?
A survivor of the 'real thing' - what does she have to fear from you?
In the shadow of the tower - she shows you her tattoo,
And you have the nerve to tell her - you're now the persecuted few?

Heads of stone,
Hearts of ice,
It's only the truth you sacrifice.

Some of you don't understand - but some understand so well,
Frozen hearts will seize your granite minds - if you fall under their spell.
The world goes through it's changes - but some things stay the same,
When you know, you can't be wrong - you'll find someone else to blame.

Hearts of ice,
Heads of stone.
So many people, so far from home.

Heads of stone,
Hearts of ice,
It's only the truth you sacrifice.

Roger Gall 1995

Subject: RE: Songs to remember Auschwitz 60th
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 11:25 PM

NOPE - there is a clone-on-the-throne!!!!

Good Night.

Sincerely,

Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Songs to remember Auschwitz 60th
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 11:06 PM

Holy SHEEEEEE-EYE-TEE - Muslum

If I knew Friday's nights did not have a clone at the throne to filter postings - I would have given many gigs ages before this current bout of the influenza-like-sypmtoms - to post all sorts of opinions that would not be deleated until morning.

WHHOOOAAAAA - Let it ROLL!!!!

Sincerely,

Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Songs to remember Auschwitz 60th
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 11:01 PM

Yeah - Abby - the Smitsonain has Paxton's "Train to Ausw"...... for 99 cents....just checked it out.

I can understand Dick's sour grapes - if he had been 20 years younger - and not linked up with someone more interested in real-estate than the DT.....well..... Dick and Susan could have been 66 cents richer per download also.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Songs to remember Auschwitz 60th
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 10:42 PM

Sorry Abby - the MudCat's Smithsonian thread to the Folkways died in less than two days....it was a Grand One.

Sincerely,

Gargoyle

It appeared that Mr. Greenhouse had a problem .... because CAMSCO and the MC would be loseing profits because tracks Folkways became available at 99 cents each.....and they believed the quality was trash without the liner notes.

Subject: RE: Songs to remember Auschwitz 60th
From: Abby Sale
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 09:09 PM

Mike Riegestreif's fine webcast show yesterday http://www.ckutfolk.com/ (Thursdays 9-11:30 am Eastern) played three specific songs.

Tom Paxton- Train for Auschwitz ...The Best of Broadside 1962-1988 (Smithsonian Folkways)

Chava Alberstein & the Klezmatics- Mayn Shvester Khaye ...The Well (Rounder)

Rod MacDonald- Auschwitz ...The Man on the Ledge (Shanachie)

I wish I had the Paxton lyrics.....

Subject: RE: Songs to remember Auschwitz 60th
From: John C.
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 02:03 PM

The other night I saw something on television which I can't get out of my mind. A woman, dressed in black, stood among the remains of the part of Auschwitz where the Gypsies were confined. She sang a song whilst accompanying herself on the fiddle. The song was, I think but I'm not sure, in Polish. I don't speak Polish but have Polish colleagues so know the sound of it - or thought I did. In this case there were subtitles to the woman's song - which was about a Gypsy man in Auschwitz. These words were so bleak and terrible that the identity of the language was irrelevant and just didn't register.
Does anyone know who the woman was? Whoever she was, she was an absolutely superb singer and musician but I was so numbed by the contrast between the beauty of her performance and the horror of the words that it is only now, a few days later, that I can bring myself to write about it.

Subject: RE: Songs to remember Auschwitz 60th
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 11:28 AM

eric bogle's never again-remember.

Subject: RE: Songs to remember Auschwitz 60th
From: DonMeixner
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 11:19 AM

I know Auschwitz isn't specifically mentioned there-in but I am always chilled by "Rubenstein Remembers".

Don

Subject: RE: Songs to remember Auschwitz 60th
From: Wolfgang
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 11:09 AM

someone please remove my repetitions.

Wolfgang

think I got them all - joeclone

Subject: RE: Songs to remember Auschwitz 60th
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 08:22 AM

My Mom is an Auschwitz survivor. She was actually liberated the day before her 16th birthday (from another camp). I have ever since, and will continue to, call people I know who are turning 16 and ask them to think about THAT instead of getting their drivers' licences. I have often wished I could write a song that captured the incredibly deep, wide and uncrossable gap between being able to grok the fullness of that experience, and the rest of us.

Subject: Lyr add: Mein Vater wird gesucht
From: Wolfgang
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 07:56 AM

I still can't see any pictures of Auschwitz (Oranienburg, Theresienstadt, Dachau, Birkenau...I could fill a page) without getting tears in my eyes though I have seen those pictures more than a hundred times. Auschwitz is special since there is no other place on earth having seen an even remotely similar number of murders: More than 1000 a day, 1,500,000 in less than 4 years.

Die Moorsoldaten is one good song from that time, another is Mein Vater wird gesucht (also on one of the Zupfgeigenhansel recordings) sung from the perspective of a little boy:

MEIN VATER WIRD GESUCHT
(Hans Drach, 1935/36; tune: Gerda Kohlmey)

Mein Vater wird gesucht,
er kommt nicht mehr nach Haus.
Sie hetzen ihn mit Hunden,
vielleicht ist er gefunden –
und kommt nicht mehr nach Haus.

Oft kam zu uns SA
und fragte, wo er sei.
Wir konnten es nicht sagen,
sie haben uns geschlagen,
wir schrien nicht dabei.

Die Mutter aber weint,
wir lasen im Bericht,
der Vater sei gefangen
und hätt' sich aufgehangen –
das glaub' ich aber nicht.

Er hat uns doch gesagt,
so etwas tät' er nicht.
Es sagten die Genossen,
SA hätt' ihn erschossen –
ganz ohne ein Gericht.

Heut' weiß ich ganz genau,
warum sie das getan.
Wir werden doch vollenden,
was er nicht konnt' beenden –
und Vater geht voran.

My father is on the run,
he doesn't come home any more,
they chase him with dogs,
perhaps they've found him
and he won't come home any more.

Often the SA came to us
and asked where he was
we couldn't tell
they've hit us,
we didn't scream.

My mother is weeping
she has read the report saying:
They've caught father
and he has hung himself
but I don't believe that

for he's told us always
he wouldn't do that.
The comrades say
the SA has shot him
without a trial.

Now I know exactly
why they did that.
We're going to finish
what he couldn't
and father'll lead the van.

(my translation; German lyrics copied from here, where you can find the tune)

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Songs to remember Auschwitz 60th
From: alanabit
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 04:42 AM

Die Gedanken Sind Frei, I think. I am not sure what "Die Gedantzen" might mean - people who are danced on, perhaps!

Subject: RE: Songs to remember Auschwitz 60th
From: mg
Date: 27 Jan 05 - 03:20 PM

Peat bog soldiers...Die Gedantzen Sind Frie...We had a great workshop at one of the first Rainycamps on a similar topic. And we do not have to choose who to remember who died in some awful tragedy...we can remember them all. mg

Subject: RE: Songs to remember Auschwitz 60th
From: alanabit
Date: 27 Jan 05 - 03:21 AM

The German group, Zupfgeigenhansel, recorded a beautiful album of Yiddish songs some years ago. A couple of those songs came from the ghettoes. Keeping those songs alive is one way of making sure that the Nazis never succeed in their aim of obliterating a culture.
I should start another thread about this below the line, but it is only a week since the fascists in one of the East German regional parliaments refused to join in a minute's silence for the victims of Auschwitz. They were protesting that the memorial should be to Germans killed by the Allies in bombing raids, particularly the Dresden massacre.
These fascists are still abhorrent to most Germans, but it is a worrying sign that they can put their heads above the ground and that even in a liberal city like Cologne, they achieved over 11% of the vote in the last local elections.

Subject: Songs to remember Auschwitz 60th
From: GUEST,The Shambles
Date: 27 Jan 05 - 03:03 AM

They Were Only Children

Through the frosty window, candles on the track,
She can smell them burning, there's no turning back
It's all written, in the lines on her face,
Look to blame no one, it's all our disgrace.

Are we not one family, on an island of stone?
We live with thousands, but die alone.

Why are they returning, old women and old men?
For eyes that have seen so much, were but children's then.
They were only children, what crime did they do?
For children they remain, be they Moslem, Serb or Jew

Are we not one family, on an island of stone?
We live with thousands, but die alone.

The place is in colour, surprised by the light,
I thought our darkest dreams, we dreamed in black and white?
The horrors are endless, what do you mention first?
One child, torn for her mother, what could be worse?

She's lost her family, lost her home,
Shipped with thousands, all died alone

The lessons are for learning, we don't seem to learn?
She looks to the candle, to watch it burn.

THEY....... WERE ONLY CHILDREN.
What crime did they do?
THEY....... WERE ONLY CHILDREN.
What crime did they do?
THEY....... WERE ONLY CHILDREN.

They.......... were only children.

ROGER GALL 1994


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