Four Holocaust Songs
Here are four songs that have become icons of remembrance of the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust. They are traditionally played on Holocaust Day, which is on the 28th day of the Hebrew month of Nissan in Israel, or January 27th in the rest of the world.
Unter Dyne Vyse Shteren (Under the Starry Sky) was written by Avraham Sutskover, a leading Yiddish poet, while trapped in the ghetto of Vilna, in July 1943. Days before the ghetto was destroyed and all the Jews murdered, Sutskover escaped to the forest with his wife. He reached Russia, and in 1947 moved to Palestine. He died in Israel in 2010 at the age of 96. The poem was set to music by Avraham Brodna, a simple laborer in the Vilna ghetto who died in a concentration camp.
Ani Maamin (I Believe): The words to this simple song are of the Jewish prayer "I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah." The tune is attributed to Azriel David Festig, a leading Warsaw hazzan (cantor) who died in the Holocaust. The song was performed after the war by Rabbi Shaul Yedidia Eliezer Taub, the Admor (Rabbinical leader) of the Modzitz Hassidic sect, and has become the iconic song of the remembrance in the Hassidic community.
Shtiller Shtiller (Hush Hush) was written by Alexander Volkovitzky, then a 12-year-old boy, in the Vilna Ghetto in the spring of 1943. Volkovitzky, who wrote the melody for a song contest organized to encourage the cultural life of the ghetto, eventually came to Israel where he (under the name Alexander Tamir) became a leading pianist and music educator. The words are by Shmerke Kacserginsky, a leading poet of Vilna, who later escaped the Holocaust and migrated to South America.
Hatikva (the Hope) is Israel's national anthem. The words are by Naftali Zvi Imber, and the tune is a traditional eastern European tune.
Sheet music is available for download (score and parts) at https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/...
Sheet music made with MuseScore - https://musescore.com