Lyrics: Taybl Birman, a 28-year-old tailor, Minsk, recorded by Hersh Kleyner, 1944.

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Music: Based on a song “Tachanka” (Tank) (1936), composed by Konstantin Listov (1900 – 1983), arrangement by Sergei Erdenko.

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Almost seventeen million people, many of them women, worked 12 to 18 hour

shifts in industries located in the Soviet rear – they manufactured military

equipment, clothes, anything that could be used to help the war effort. Written

from the point of view of one such female worker, the song encourages her

husband, a Red Army soldier, to kill as many Germans as possible. The words

“kill them without mercy” resonate with the most influential piece ever

published in the Soviet press, Ilya Ehrenburg’s article “Kill the German” (1942).

In it, Ehrenburg stated that Germans were not humans, and should be killed

without any hesitation. Quotes from this article were included in songs, sayings,

riddles and ditties composed in almost all languages of the Soviet Union,

including this Yiddish one. Another noteworthy image of the song is the sewing

of a burial shroud for Hitler, which serves as a metaphor for a joint effort

between the home front and those in combat in defeating fascism. The song

relies on Soviet tunes that were written by Jewish composers, which were

popular during the war. This version of the song includes fragments of “Ekh

Dorogi” (Ah, Roads!) (1945), by Anatoly Novikov (1896 – 1984).