In the lead up to the UN Holocaust Remembrance Day on 27 January 2018 a series of recordings of The Partisan Song, Zog Nit Keynmol, sung and recited by ORT and other schools will remind us of the importance of remembering and commemorating The Holocaust.
Here is a new video of a student of ORT School #550, St Petersburg, Russia reciting The Holocaust Survivors’ Anthem in English
World ORT is in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Maryusya Zarembo, an 8th grade student at ORT de Gunzburg School, is in awe of Hirsh Glick’s defiantly optimistic lyrics to Zog Nit Keynmol, the anthem of the Jewish partisans.
“This is the first time I’ve read or heard the poetry of someone from that time. It’s hard for me to imagine how he could have found the time or energy to be creative in those circumstances, but he did. And his verses are very powerful and life-affirming,” Maryusya said.
World ORT supports an initiative by Eli Rabinowitz to promote Zog nit Keynmol to new generations. Learning the lyrics, Maryusya said, had made her think about the Holocaust and its lessons for humanity.
“We have to learn that a person must not be humiliated or destroyed because of their ethnicity, faith or politics,” she said. “We can’t expect everyone to be a saint but the more we protect each other, the more tolerant we are, the stronger humanity will become. The alternative is extinction.”
Maryusya paid tribute to the World Jewish Congress’s #WeRemember campaign, in which World ORT is a proud partner.
“The tragedy of the Holocaust must be remembered,” she said. “It is necessary to discuss its consequences and, most importantly, it is necessary to draw the right conclusions. It seems to me that art in any form gives an excellent opportunity to express one’s own attitude about what happened. This is very important because it is an opportunity to reach out to different people and to be heard.”
To find out more about the Zog nit Keynmol project visit: http://elirab.me/zog-nit-keynmol/.
English
Never say that there is only death for you,
Though leaden skies may be concealing days of blue,
Because the hour we have hungered for near;
Beneath our tread the earth shall tremble — we are here!
From land of palm tree to the far-off land of snow,
We shall be coming with our torment and our woe;
And everywhere our blood has sunk into the earth,
Shall our bravery, our vigor blossom forth.
We’ll have the morning sun to set our day aglow,
And all our yesterdays shall vanish with the foe;
And if the time is long before the sun appears,
Then let this song go like a signal through the years.
This song was written with blood and not with lead;
It’s not a song that summer birds sing overhead;
It was a people among toppling barricades,
That sang this song of ours with pistols and grenades.
Never say that there is only death for you,
Though leaden skies may be concealing days of blue,
Because the hour we have hungered for is near;
Beneath our tread the earth shall tremble, — we are here!
ORT de Gunzburg Secondary School # 550 “Shorashim”, St Petersburg
ORT de Gunzburg Secondary School # 550 “Shorashim”, St Petersburg
#WeRemember: WJC reaching out to millions on social media in campaign to raise awareness of Holocaust
#WeRemember: WJC reaching out to millions on social media in campaign to raise awareness of Holocaust
Join the World Jewish Congress in an unprecedented campaign: Take a photo of yourself holding up a sheet of paper with the words “We Remember” and post it to social media with the hashtag #WeRemember.
Source: youtu.be/vgoNGtJqX9k