1. |
||||
|
Forced to leave her Frankfurt home
She’s summoned to the train
With only hours to pack a bag
No one to explain
How long the trip, the weather there
Belongings she would need
Mother packed some candlesticks
Fresh-baked bread to eat
Yes, she said to ballet shoes
Doubted pas de deux
But left behind her warmest boots
Without the proper clues
Tossed her frayed and favorite dress
No room in her small bags
“Relocating to the east”
She’d soon be wearing rags
She held her piano music sheets
Beethoven and Brahms
Picked her slimmest book of prayers
Not leaving without Psalms
Rainer Maria Rilke’s poems
Goethe for the rail
Not knowing all she’d really need
Were water and a pail
Wrapped in woolen winter skirt
To cover her bare knees
She wore her coat, warm-up suit
Dying by degrees
She buried asthma medicine
Scant supply prescribed
She’d learn to breathe a lethal air
With treatment improvised
In truth she’d need a dose of luck
Skills to measure food
A sleuth to get her a slice of bread
A star that named her Jude
She pressed her life into a satchel
Filled with her precious stuff
But to survive in Ghetto Łódź
Things were not enough
Forced to leave her Frankfurt home
She’s summoned to the train
With only hours to pack a bag
No one to explain
Jude (German): Jew
|
||||
2. |
||||
|
Women wrote in darkest times
When Nazis censored speech and rhymes
Banished thoughts and youthful dreams
Metered minds and measured schemes
Jewish women left us traces
Fragments of their narrow spaces
Placed their words inside the staves
That contradicted narrow graves
Pen on paper gave life meaning
Snapshots of what souls were gleaning
They measured words, they used their minds
They wrote and read between the lines
They dreamed of living through their fears
Their poems framed the nightmare years
They told the truth of ghetto lives
Of camps where husbands lost their wives
Of Holy Writ and ridicule
Abandonment of Golden Rule
Purges, dirges, sad refrains
Sanctity amidst the stains
Ghetto women told their stories
Echoed simple girlhood glories
They measured words, they used their minds
They wrote and read between the lines
In the camps like pencils broken
Women graphed a life unspoken
Encrypting nouns, inventing verbs
Describing with imperfect words
Shtetl girls in weekday dress
Wore good sides out for Sabbath best
But ghettos fashioned heavy skirts
Worn with worry and alert
In camps two Polish sisters wrote
Their rhyme-and-rhythm’s antidote
Their seamless poems measured stresses
Sewn into the hems of dresses
Memories of sand and sea
In their thoughts they could be free
They measured words, they used their minds
They wrote and read between the lines
Jewish women—teachers, writers
Poets, artists, freedom fighters—
They measured words, they used their minds
They wrote and read between the lines
Shtetl (Yiddish): a small Jewish village in eastern Europe
|
||||
3. |
||||
|
In Warsaw "the little bird”
Learned timing is everything
When to smuggle guns past the wall
When to help the children sing
She knew to bribe the ghetto guards
When to teach youth how to write
When to forge her fate as Vladka
And when to dress dynamite
Her world is a narrow bridge
Crossing on a narrow ridge
She lived days on wit alone
That burns a fire in her bones
(repeat)
She hid the map in her shoes
Sensed when to stay or flee
No time to wait, the hourglass drains
Fighters make their plea
Desperate youth dare to fight
Despair makes them strong
Ghetto nightmares turn to dreams
And silent screams turn to song
Their world is a narrow bridge
Crossing on a narrow ridge
She lived nights on wit alone
That burns a fire in their bones
(repeat)
She wants to see her home once more
Her nest isn’t like it was before
In America Vladka wrote
Courier’s memories in stone
Her spirit rests in teachers’ hearts
Where courage would find a home
Her world is a narrow bridge
Crossing on a narrow ridge
She lived days on wit alone
That burns a fire in her bones
(repeat)
She wants to see her home once more
Her nest isn’t like it was before
|
||||
4. |
||||
|
This bowl of soup is dear to her
Death the going price
Potato peels, bones, and broth
Simmered without spice
Peels through guarded ghetto walls
Bones from stolen meat
Heated up, watered down
Barely fit to eat
Brother does the foraging
To feed the four of them
He’s only nine yet hopes to find
An extra root or stem
With a spoon from silver chest
Trace of family’s past
He ladles stock into her bowl
To break the daily fast
On freezing Warsaw Ghetto days
His broth sustains her soul
A brother loses childhood here
It seeps through cracks in bowl
This bowl of soup is dear to her
Death the going price
Potato peels, bones, and broth
Simmered without spice
|
||||
5. |
Meghan Hone - No Art
03:59
|
|||
|
Pausing near the railroad tracks
Norbert Wollheim on a teachers’ trip
Sits at Auschwitz, looking back
Through his mind pictures whip
Welded by I. G. Farben’s grip
And retells history, details, facts:
Partings, factory metalwork
Hangings, shootings, betrayals, fears
Shadows where the sadists lurk
Barracks, comrades, brothers, peers
Heads held up above the jeers
Birth dates changed as the barracks clerk
The story that he freely gives
Says will and luck are why he lives
Survival is no art
He recalls debarking from the train
When his family arrived
And stands where commands of Cain
Left him forever twice deprived
His wife, his son, just he survived
A daily dose of pain
Ready to depart
This gentle man recounts, relives
And teaches with a stalwart heart
The story that he freely gives
Says will and luck are why he lives
Survival is no art
|
||||
6. |
||||
|
You tell us of the butterfly
Whose yellow dazzled you
Kissed the ghetto world good-bye
The last bright winged one flew
The sun’s tears like your own fears
“Sing against a white stone . . .”*
The sun can cry but you must dry
Your tears inside a poem
For seven long weeks you gaze about
For signs of what still lives
Dandelions, white chestnut branches
Reasons for thanks you give
You miss the flight of butterflies
“O happy living things”**
We mourn your own departure there
A poet without wings
Oh, a poet without wings
*Pavel Friedmann, “The Butterfly.”
**Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”
|
||||
7. |
||||
|
You always were an archangel on wheels
Honed honesty and love from youthful days
The Swedish diplomat Grandfather feels
That grooming for a higher calling pays
You mobilized your strength from your ideals
You always were an archangel on wheels
In Michigan, architecture appeals
Your public housing projects earn high praise
You mobilized your strength from your ideals
You always were an archangel on wheels
You map your blueprints for life-saving deals
Protecting Jews in houses and railways
For Jews in Budapest your passport seals
Three golden crowns, a Schutzpass boldly says
You mobilized your strength from your ideals
You always were an archangel on wheels
The ledger, tossed in leather case, reveals
The dispatched host who exits in a haze
You mobilized your strength from your ideals
You always were an archangel on wheels
You mobilized your strength from your ideals
You always were an archangel on wheels
Schutzpass (German): Schutz means protection; pass, passport
|
||||
8. |
||||
|
Jack Goldstein boarded the train
To Maaseik, Belgium, northward bound
Under the cloak of Father Bruno
The hide-and-seek that he allowed
Though hiding Jews it was no game now
False IDs, food ration cards
New last names, new religion
With white-robed Jewish boys on guard
Father placed Rachelle Silberman
In Bruges by the North Sea
At the convent of Franciscan sisters
She carried a blue coat she called mon ami
In the steely rows of kneeling stools
The coat it covered cold bare knees
Yet they spoke with light in their eyes
Of “Before the War” —Le Paradis
My parents are coming, my parents are coming
Because of kind Father Reynders
My parents are coming, my parents are here
Because of kind Father Reynders
Flora Mendelowicz of Brussels
Sent by her mother, tended by him
He rode his bike all through the country
Hiding Jewish kids and spinning hymns
Dom dressed the part of several people
His shorn head hidden, a beret he wore
The ration cards fed hundreds of children
Recycled as orphans through convent doors
He had to move Flora again
To Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows where she thrived
Thank you to the sisters and to Father Bruno
The Benedictine who saved the hive
Our guide at the museum now, it’s Flora
She points to his name in the Rescuers’ Hall
She says, “He was a saint if there ever was one”
As she bent and kissed the wall
My parents are coming, my parents are coming
Because of kind Father Reynders
My parents are coming, my parents are here
Because of kind Father Reynders.
Abbé Bruno Reynders
|
||||
9. |
||||
|
Mister Sugihara spies
Eyes behind the gate
If Tokyo denies his pleas
Escape may come too late
For Jews the world’s a spinning wheel
From Kovno to Japan
The consul wires his appeal
Tokyo halts his plan
With furrowed brow and sleepless eyes
Whose law should he obey?
His hand can save them with his pen
Not a moment to delay
In school he learned “Do much for others”
His mother was a samurai
Master of eight languages
Makes him the perfect spy
Sugihara and his wife
See these men as brothers
Expecting little in return
Doing much for others
With furrowed brow and sleepless eyes
His conscience he’ll obey
His hand will save them with his pen
Not a moment to delay
Steadied by Yukiko, writing
A visa for each in line
The measure of this man’s reply
Two thousand, one hundred thirty-nine
Two thousand, one hundred thirty-nine
|
||||
10. |
||||
|
I watched myself watch my son
Board a train to England
Cardboard draped round his neck
Identity number written
My hands cradled his bowed head
My mouth asked God to bless him
Keep him close, grant him peace
So far away from Essen
I left him there as we were told
Instructed not to cry
I heard myself say I’d soon come
My lips then said good-bye
I felt my legs walk me away
They took me to our home
The silence of his bedroom
Told me I was alone
The weeks endured, his letter came
He’s well but hoped I’d follow
Our Kinder turned into letters
My heart felt full yet hollow
My eyes reread his words
Lips blessed a distant stranger
Though out of sight I felt a light
That kept him far from danger
I watched myself watch my son
Board a train to England
|
||||
11. |
||||
|
I am that child, my suitcase stuffed with clothes
Transported from Berlin, my old hometown
I am the Jew the Nazi said he loathes
I rode the rail to live under the Crown
I am that child transplanted to a home
With Quakers kind who often spoke of Thee
New London life meant safety and shalom
Each night I doubted I’d see family
I am that child now called their boy, their lad
By grown-ups “Uncle Jim” and “Auntie Nell”
In me they looked for good instead of bad
They taught me right from wrong and fed me well
I am a man because my parents felt
I could survive where lovingkindness dwelt
|
||||
12. |
||||
|
Pavel Friedmann and Anne Frank
Drew comfort from a tree
A private avenue, aligned
Alone, majestic, free
Amsterdam, Theresienstadt
Two loved the sturdy limbs
In simple words they lauded them
And penned their private hymns
Anne’s horse chestnut dressed the yard
In shades of leafy green
Painted birds in bluest skies
Traced what life had been
Enfolding arms of open air
Envisioned, stilled her fear
Solace for the suffering
Dewdrop for the tear
No ghetto hosted butterflies
But Pavel praised the bright
Yellow-fingered dandelions
Climbing branches white
Chestnut shoulders, boyhood spells
Aloft where sentries played
Grateful for familiar things
Fortresses of shade
Amsterdam, Theresienstadt
Two loved the sturdy limbs
In simple words they lauded them
And penned their private hymns
Pavel Friedmann and Anne Frank
Drew comfort from a tree
A private avenue, aligned
Alone, majestic, free
Oh, alone, majestic, free
|
||||
13. |
||||
|
Young da Vinci, Petr Ginz
Now called number 446
Leaving Prague on a forced trip
October of ’42
For a train to Theresienstadt
Kept a log as he quietly packed
Ten-kilo limit carefully tracked
Art supplies he’d need
His precious suitcase he hoped to find
Jules Verne favorites left behind
Packed paper and thin leather to bind
With tools to illustrate
Wizards and mountains, his manuscript
Linocut knives for rocket ships
For woodcuts he was well-equipped
To carve calm lines in space
Petr Ginz, an artist, writer
Here became a freedom fighter
He led his peers, these brave young men
With old typewriter, pencils, pen
Linocut knives had schooled his heart
Traveling far through Jules Verne’s art
He drew maps of worlds, Moon Landscape, charts
A private universe left behind
They forged a secret magazine
He loved this world he’d barely seen
Forced on a train he left Terezin
September of ’44
Petr Ginz, 1880 his number
No provisions for food or slumber
Forced on a trip to unfamiliar parts
He’d made his life a work of art
An asteroid named Petrginz
Of bold achievement this name hints
He knew Jules Verne’s space frontiers
Lines in space beyond his years
Asteroid 50413
In orbit a lasting memory
His private universe in poetry
Lines in space, Petr’s spheres
|
||||
14. |
||||
|
In the silence of the night
I rise to stanzas of his light
The spine of stars, Orion’s belt
A glowing ring of what he felt
Stars knew Egypt’s famined grain
Like words restored in sheaves again
His fallen star, a newborn child
Would live through him when verse was styled
Avrom waited for a hand
Beneath the pearly stars
To stretch through snowy nights
A shelter from afar
Whitened stars fell into tears
Meter marked his earthly fears
He wished for embryonic times
When stars were watered by his rhyme
From afar he sang of dust
The steady stars a heart could trust
The candles counted heaven’s space
Cantillations at his pace
Avrom waited for God’s hand
To cradle his dark fears
Past Vilna’s frozen rooftops
Searching through the years
Dear Avrom, how your poems imprint
The power of a soul’s lament
Dear Avrom, how your star-tossed lights
Refract your days and haunt my nights
Avrom waited for a hand
Beneath the white stars
To stretch through silent, snowy nights
A shelter from afar
Avrom waited for God’s hand
To cradle his dark fears
Past Vilna’s frozen rooftops
Searching through the years
From afar he sang of dust
The steady stars a heart could trust
The candles counted heaven’s space
Cantillations at his pace
The candles counted heaven’s space
Cantillations at his pace
|
||||
15. |
||||
|
He wrote their lives so all would know these Jews
Their shtetls, stories, songs, and golden dreams
In archives so that we could see the hues
He wrote their lives so all would know these Jews
Of ghetto life in Warsaw we have clues
Collected by these young and academes
He wrote their lives so all would know these Jews
Of ghetto life in Warsaw we have clues
His Oyneg Shabes group recorded news
Filed crimson-coded papers by the reams
In archives so that we could see the hues
He wrote their lives so all would know these Jews
The sea of yellow stars unveiled abuse
The voices of resistance showed brave schemes
He wrote their lives so all would know these Jews
He wrote their lives so all would know these Jews
To stay or run away he had to choose
He stayed to write their fight against extremes
In archives so that we could see the hues
He wrote their lives so all would know these Jews
When ghetto fighters pieced together cues
They buried evidence beneath the beams
In archives so that we could see the hues
He wrote their lives
He wrote their lives
So all would know these Jews
|
||||
16. |
Meghan Hone - Recounting
04:48
|
|||
|
Parents locked in Warsaw’s cage
When rage of black boots clattered
Tried to tend their girls and boys
The ones who truly mattered
Mothers told the truth to them
Why food supplies ran dry
That mothers had no appetite
Sons knew this was a lie
Crawling through the cracks of wall
Boys smuggled at age six
Breadwinners for the families
Dinner through the bricks
Parents feared their famished girls
Whose waists were growing small
Would never dream a wedding gown
Now shrouded in a shawl
Recounting hate
Dreading fate
When childhood is lost
All pay the mortal cost
The price of hate
Fathers trapped in Warsaw’s maze
When truth was frayed and tattered
Tried to guard their girls and boys
The ones who truly mattered
Mothers weigh with heavy hearts
Bread they must divide
Rationed hopes and promises
To themselves they cried
Recounting hate
Dreading fate
When childhood is lost
All pay the mortal cost
The price of hate
As Jews here in America
We dread what we must tell
To children who are innocent
We serve a slice of hell
We pray it doesn’t happen here
Or start up once again
We guard our words and gauge our tone
As we say Amen
Recounting hate
Breaking fate
When childhood was lost
All paid the heavy cost
The price of hate
(repeat)
We say it couldn’t happen here
Or start up once again
We guard our words and gauge our tone
And pray it’s true, Amen
|
||||
17. |
||||
|
From Vilna’s silent, cellared holes
Avrom beckons God’s light hand
To reach beneath His pearly stars
Suspended hope in single strands
Petr tills with intellect
Terezin’s mud-engraven ground
His ideas rise like shining stars
And orbit still, afire, unbound
Pavel Friedmann and Anne Frank
Report their worlds though far apart
He misses yellow butterflies
She yearns for stars she can chart
A child adrift in wartime current
Suitcase packed for journeys far
Precious things, the sole companion
Guided by glimmering stars
|
||||
Beneath White Stars Winter Park, Florida
If you like Beneath White Stars: Holocaust Profiles in Song, you may also like:
All New
by Tom Paxton, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer
The sound of classic country music abounds on the latest from Grammy-winners Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer.
go to album
Long Time To Be Gone
by Nora Brown
Nora Brown continues to bring nuance and resonance to her modern interpretation of Appalachian folk and bluegrass on her latest LP.
go to album
JESSICA's second album was recorded live solely with vocals and piano.
go to album
House and Land
by House and Land
For House and Land, tradition isn’t so much an anchor as it is a springboard toward bold new ideas.
go to album
Mind, Man, Medicine
by The Secret Sisters
The Alabama duo's fifth album exults in dusty Americana, showcasing rich vocal harmonies alongside blissful folk instrumentation.
go to album
More contemplative folk from the Minnesota singer-songwriter, sustained by raw full-band arrangements and philosophical lyrics.
go to album
Irish singer-songwriter Oisin Leech's acoustic folk music is characterized by its muted beauty and intimate, solitary quality.
go to album
