A GIRL FROM KYIV - A MEYDELE FROM KYIV
Lyrics: Unknown
Music: Folk
Arrangement: Drew Jurecka
English translation and transliteration: Eli Jany
Recorded from an unknown survivor, this version draws on an older Yiddish song first documented in the Ginsburg–Marek collection of Yiddish folklore, published in 1901, with the editors dating its circulation to at least 1898 (Saul M. Ginsburg, et al., Yiddish Folksongs in Russia Bar-Ilan University Press, 1991, pp. 56–58). The earlier folk text contains no references to war; instead, it centers on a girl who has lost her family and pleads for help. In contrast, this postwar rendition — recorded in Kyiv sometime after 1945 and before 1947 — recasts the narrative by inscribing German violence as the source of
the singer’s suffering, presenting begging not as a timeless motif but as a direct consequence of wartime devastation.
English
Yiddish Transliteration
On the streets of Kiev, where it’s dark
and damp,
a little girl stands and cries.
She stands and cries,
looking at the many people
and begging for a small donation.
“You little girl, you pretty girl,
why is your expression so sad?
With your nature, with your lovely figure,
you’re fit to be a countess.”
“The murderers from Germany came into
our home
and smashed everything to pieces.
Smashed everything to pieces and
stabbed my father;
my mother died of grief.
My brother, in anger, went into the street
and stabbed one of the murderers.
They caught him and beat him
and put him in shackles.
How great is the shame in holding out
one’s hand
to beg for a small donation.
God, have mercy, stretch out your arms
and take me away from this world.”
in kiev af der gas, vi es iz fintster
un nas,
shteyt a kleyn meydele un veynt.
zi shteyt un veynt,
fil mentshn zi zet,
zi bet a nedove a kleyne.
du meydele kleyns, du meydele sheyns
vos makhstu aza troyerike mine?
mit dayner nature, mit dayn sheyner figure
es past dir tsu zayn a grafinye.
di merder fun daytshland zaynen arayn
tsu undz in shtub
un hobn di shtub tsebrokhn,
di shtub tsebrokhn,
dem foter geshtorkhn
di muter iz far veytik geshtorbn.
der bruder far kas iz aroys af der gas
un hot eynem fun di merder geshtorkhn.
me hot im gepakt, me hot im gehakt,
me hot im in keytn geshlosn.
vi groys iz di shand tsu shtrekn di hant
tsu betn a nedove a kleyne.
got, derbarem zikh, du shtrek oys dayne
harem
un nem mikh shoyn tsu fun der velt.
Source Documents & Recordings
DEVELOPED BY DUMASTAR
Source: VNLU, fond 190, folder 157, l.2