Lyr Req: Martin Fontasch

Subject: Martin Fontasch
From: GUEST,JET MORGAN
Date: 10 Jul 00 - 07:31 PM

Does anyone know the words and/or the music of Martin Fontasch? I think it's by Leon Rosselson.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Martin Fontasch
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 07:34 AM

It's called "The Song of Martin Fontasch" and it's on Leon Rosselson's 4-song CD The Last Chance as well as "Intruders" (click the same link).

Subject: Lyr Add: THE SONG OF MARTIN FONTASCH (L Rosselson)
From: Piersy
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 10:05 AM

Here you go, see Leon at St.Albans Folk Song Club, Herts, UK. 21/03/03.

Piers

THE SONG OF MARTIN FONTASCH (Leon Rosselson)

The story's told of how in 1942
Martin Fontasch, poet, carpenter and Jew
With a band of Partisans through in his lot
Till he was taken by the Germans to be shot.
He was a peaceful man, quick to laugh and cry
At every village celebration he'd be there
With his songs that told of sadness and of joy
And the guitar he carried with him everywhere.
But when the Nazis came and killed his wife and son
Martin traded his guitar in for a gun.

This song is for those who are cast out by history
The banned and abandoned, the spurned and ignored
Whose homes have been taken, whose dreams have been broken
Who huddled on hillsides, demand to be heard.

The German soldier assigned to kill the Jew
As it happened, was a music-lover too.
And this bond, it seems, is what made him decide
To offer Martin one last wish before he died.
Soon my soul, Martin said, will dance on air.
Now all I ask is time to write my farewell song.
The German soldier checked his watch and said: One hour.
One hour? Martin remarked…that long?
And so he wrote and sang full-voiced to raise the dead
And then the German put a bullet in his head.

And this song…

The German kept the song and bragged of what he'd done
And showed it proudly - when in drink - to everyone.
He couldn't read the words and didn't seem to see
That a song cannot take root unless it's free.
And then one night two partisans set out -
The song must be released the man must die -
They slipped into his quarters, slit his throat
Took back the song and gave it wings to fly.
And it soared upon the wind and came to rest
And found a home among the damned and dispossessed.

And his song was for those…

Though we resist oppression, still our dream is peace,
Theirs is the mask of hatred, ours the human face.
Then let not our sufferings turn our souls to ice
So that we do to strangers what was done to us.
It is not with conquering armies I belong
Their bloody retribution I disown
Their songs of triumph I will never sing
For the God they worship turns them into stone.
If any teach their children how to hate and hurt,
Though they are Jews they do not live inside my heart.

And his song is for those who are cast out by history..

Let his song be a spark,
Let it fly through the dark like a bird.

Song Notes (Intruders): I found this story in Primo Levi's book about Jewish partisans in the Second World War 'If Not Now, When?' Another story is told in David Grossman's book about Palestinians in Israel, 'Sleeping on a Wire'. An elderly Arab goes to the civil administration to renew his driving licence. At the administration's headquarters, he sees Arabs, guarded by an Israeli soldier, kneeling down on one knee. The soldier tells him 'Kneel like them.' 'I'm already 85 years old,'the old man replies, 'and you can shoot me, but I won't kneel down.' The song Primo Levi attributes to Martin Fontasch is about standing up for yourself ('If I'm not for myself, who will be for me? If not this way how? If not now when?'). The song I've given him, fifty years on, is, for obvious reasons, rather different.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Martin Fontasch
From: Piersy
Date: 28 Nov 02 - 10:06 AM

Here's the song from an english version Primo Levi's moving novel, If Not Now, When?

Do you recognise us? We're the sheep of the ghetto,
Shorn for a thousand years, resigned to outrage.
We are the tailors, the scribes and the cantors,
Withered in the shadow of the cross.
Now we have learned the paths of the forest,
We have learned to shoot, and we aim straight.
If I'm not for myself, who will be for me?
If not this way how? And if not now, when?

Our brothers have gone to heaven
Through the chimneys of Sobibor and Treblinka,
They have dug themselves a grave in the air.
Only we few have survived
For the honour of our submerged people
For revenge and to bear witness.
If I'm not for myself, who will be for me?
If not this way how? And if not now, when?

We are the sons of David, the hardheaded sons of Masada.
Each of us carries in his pocket a stone
That shattered the forehead of Goliath.
Brothers, away from this Europe of graves:
Let us climb together towards the land
Where we will be men among men.
If I'm not for myself, who will be for me?
If not this way how? And if not now, when?