Lyrics: Reli Blay, based on David Nomberg’s lullaby, “Dark Clouds Race and Rush”

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Music: Unknown

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Arrangement: Drew Jurecka

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English translation: Hindy Abelson

Transliteration: Eli Jany

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Recorded from numerous survivors from Transnistria, the lullaby encapsulates all major experiences of refugees from Bessarabia and northern Bukovina. These include witnessing the deaths of close family members, forced expulsions from homes, violence

of living under the Romanian and German occupation in Ukraine, and, of course, hope for a peaceful future. It is possible that Reli Blay, who was deported to Transnistria from Chernowitz in 1941, based that song on her own ordeals. Blay’s husband, Froim Blay, served in the Red Army, whereas she and her baby son lived in the Mohilev–Podilsky ghetto and transit point for three years, between 1941 and 1944.

English

Yiddish Transliteration

The engines rush and run,

and the train whistles.

We, the expelled, sit inside;

they’re sending us to the Bug.

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There, the wide Dniester beckons,

sends a greeting to me

from my mother and my sister

who are already here.

[They] drove us out of our home

into a strange land;

nothing remained for us,

we were banished.

And here we found

solitude, hunger, hardship;

in beautiful Ukraine,

death reigns.

Typhus, solitude, hunger, cold

accomplished more

than weapons can

in a great battle.

And for us there is

no grave, no tombstone.

In a large mass grave

they lay us to rest.

But a storm doesn’t last forever;

the war will end,

again the sun will shine for us–

victory is ours.

And then we will come, liberated,

to our old home.

Leave the dead among the dead,

life will be beautiful again.

es loyfn, es yogn di mashinen,

un es fayft der tsug;

mir faryogte zitsn drinen,

men shikt undz tsum bug.

dortn vinkt der breyter dnester,

shikt eyn grus mir tsu

fun mayn mamen un mayn shvester,

vos zaynen shoyn do.

fun der haymat undz fartribn

in a fremdn land,

gornisht iz undz mer farblibn,

mir zaynen farbant [fartribn].

un do hobn mir gefunen

elnt, hunger, noyt,

in der sheyner ukraine

iz regirt der toyt.

tifus, elnt, hunger, keltn

hobn mer folbrakht [afgeton]

vi gevere konen zeltn

in a groyser shlakht.

un keyn keyver, keyn matseyve

iz far undz nishto,

in a masn-grub a groysen

legt men undz tsu ru.

dokh der shturm doyert nit eybik,

endn vet der krig,

vider vet di zun undz shaynen,

undzer iz der zig.

un dan kumen mir bafrayte

in dem altn heym,

lozt di toyte ba di toyte,

dos lebn vet vider zayn sheyn.

Source Documents & Recordings