The song goes back to the Vilna poet Hirsch Glik . Before the Shoah, the city of Wilna ( Yiddish Vilne) had a population of around 40% Jewish , Yiddish-speaking, which was rounded up in the Vilna ghetto after the invasion of the Wehrmacht in 1941 . When the National Socialists were increasingly deporting Jews from Vilnius in April 1943, Hirsch Glik went into hiding and joined the partisans . Hirsch Glik wrote the text of the song Sog nit kejnmol at the end of April 1943 under the impression of the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto to the melody of the Russian march "Tereks Cossack March Song" (Терская походная), which was written by Dmitri Jakowlewitsch Pokrass and his brother Daniel Yakassovlesch for den The 1937 Soviet film "I, a son of the working people" (Я, сын трудового народа, based on the novel of the same name by Valentin Petrovich Katajew ) was composed. The song quickly became the hymn of the Jewish partisans of the Fareinigte Partisaner Organisatzije (FPO). Hirsch Glik was killed in action against the German armed forces.
After the Second World War, the song Zog nit keynmol was sung regularly at events by survivors from the Vilna ghetto, where it played a central role. However, it was spread far beyond the Jews from Vilnius, was translated into over 20 languages and is today, alongside the HaTikwa, the most important modern song in Judaism.
The song became known in German-speaking countries through the German folklore duo Zupfgeigenhansel , who added the song to their repertoire and released it in 1979 on the LP Jiddische Lieder - 'ch hob gehert sogn . However, it was already released in 1977 on the LP Yiddish by the group Espe . The song was later interpreted by other German music groups, such as Die Toten Hosen in 2015.
Didn't move to kéynmol, az du geyst dem lastn veg,
hímlen bláyene farshtéln bloye teg.
Kúmen vet nokh únzer óysgendkte sho,
s'vet a poyk ton únzer trot: me záynen do!
1.
זאָג נישט קייןמאָל, אַז דו גייסט דעם לעצטן וועג,
הימלען בלײַענע פֿאַרשטעלן בלויע טעג.
קומען וועט נאָך אונזער אויסגעבענקטע שעה,
ס׳וועט אַ פּויק טאָן אונזער טראָט: מיר זענען דאָ!
1.
Never say you go the last way
when leaden skies obscure the blue days.
Our long-awaited hour is yet to come
our step will boom: we are there!
literature
Anna Lipphardt: Vilne - the Jews from Vilnius after the Holocaust - a transnational relationship story . Schöningh, Paderborn 2010. Chapter 11, Zog nit keynmol, az du geyst dem lastn veg! From Vilner Resistance Song to the Jewish Transnational Hymn , pp. 293–342.
