A MASSACRE IN ZHABOKRYCH
Lyrics: Shikl (Semion) Gershberg (1909 – after 1998)
Music: Psoy Korolenko
Arrangement: Drew Jurecka
English translation and transliteration: Eli Jany
This is a song recorded in 1945 from Shikl Gershberg, a hair-dresser from Zhabokrych. In July 1941, when 437 Jews from Zhabokrych were shot over the course of three days during the largest single massacre in Transnistria, he hid in a neighbor’s attic (from where he could see the shootings). Soon after that, the Germans left Zhabokrych, and Romanian authorities set up a ghetto there, where Gershberg kept working as a hairdresser. In March 1944, soon after the Red Army liberated Zhabokrych, he was drafted into the Red Army, was wounded, then fought in Berlin, and finally came home just weeks prior to Beregovsky’s visit. Even though the song was never recorded or published, Gershberg’s daughter, Tsilia Goldshtein, remembered its words and submitted the text to the Yad Vashem Archive in 2008.
English
Yiddish Transliteration
Listen up, people, to what happened in
the town of Zhabokrych
In forty-one, the Jews were led into four
cellars.
The people were driven thirty or forty at
a time
and every one of them fell from a bullet.
They drove men and women with young
children in their arms;
a while later, they could no longer be
recognized,
because the heat of the cellars and the
smoke from the bullets
had burned up their faces.
For three days, the murderers went into
the Jewish houses
and each of them was led by a guard
and the people lay deep in blood
and waited for death every minute.
In the red cellar, Jewish blood boiled on
every post.
During the slaughter, many women lost
their minds.
The screams of the women and the cries
of the children
were so heartbreaking they could move a
stone to tears.
Now imagine what the town of
Zhabokrych went through;
sing this song and truly believe in its words.
Tell the world, every last person,
that the town of Zhabokrych was turned
into a cemetery.
hert oys, mentshn, vos inem shtetele
zhabokritsh hot zikh pasirt,
in eyn un fertsikstn yor hot men di yidn in
fir kelers farfirt.
me hot getribn di mentshn tsu draysik-
fertsik mit eyn mol
un yeder fun zey iz gefaln durkh eyn kol
me hot getribn mener, froyen mit kleyne
kinder af di hent
in a tsayt arum hot men zey mer nit
derkent,
vayl fun di hitsn fun di kelers un fun dem
roykh fun di koyln
zaynen zeyere penemer gevorn ibergebrent.
dray teg zaynen di rotskhim gegangen in
di yidishe hayzer,
un yedern fun zey hot gefirt an onvayzer,
un di mentshn zaynen gelegn tif in dem blut
un gevart afn toyt yeder minut.
in dem roytn keler hot gezotn dos yidishe
blut af yedn slup
in der tsayt fun der shkhite iz asakh
froyen funem zinen arop.
di koyles fun di froyen mit dem
kindershn geveyn
hobn gerirt nit nor keyn mentshn, nor afile
eyn shteyn
haynt shtelt aykh for, vos dos shtetele
zhabokritsh hot ibergelebt,
zingt ot di lid un zayt in ir emes bagleybt.
git iber der velt, dem gantsn oylem,
az fun dem shtetele zhabokritsh iz gevorn
a beysoylem.
Source Documents & Recordings
DEVELOPED BY DUMASTAR
Source: VNLU, fond 190, folder 132, ll. 243–244.