TULCHIN

Lyrics: Yosef Broverman, 16 years old, an 8th grade student in a Ukrainian school. He was in the Pechora camp until September 1943, then sent to work on peat excavation. He wrote the song in 1942 when he was still in the camp. Tulchin, 3 September, 1945.

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Music: Based on Alfred Schnittke (1934 – 1998)’s “Mary’s Song” from the TV-series “Little Tragedies” (1979), arrangement by Mikhail Savichev.

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A rare ballad of destruction, written during the killings of 1942, it documents the

tragedy of Tulchin, a small Ukrainian town, which lost its entire pre-war Jewish

population during World War II. The song testifies to violence, cruelty, hope-

lessness, hunger, and devastation. It visualizes countless orphans, all destined

to be killed in Pechora, the nearby ghetto/camp, where thousands were

abused and starved to death during the war. The last verse of the song was

added later, either by censors or by collection editors. It encouraged revenge

and fighting with rifles in hand. Without the verse the song would have lacked

the call for resistance, and therefore would have not have fitted into the official

Soviet narrative during the war.

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Schnittke’s tune, written almost 25 years after the lyrics, was chosen because the

original “Mary’s Song”* also told a story of destruction – of a small village in

Europe, due to the Black Plague of 1348. In addition to striking similarities in

structures and tragic imagery of both songs – the lyrics to “Mary’s Song” were

written by the nineteenth century poet Alexander Pushkin – we wanted to hint

at the common description of the enemy as a plague. “Mary’s Song” lamented

victims of the disease, whereas this one condemned fascism, often referred to

as the “Brown Plague.”

English

Russian

Yiddish Transliteration

Yiddish

I remind myself, just once more

Of how it used to be

Our [old] luck, our [old] lives, 

All that once shone for us

How bright it once was for us. 

Our suffering [and] our crying

Have no relief, no end in sight

Oh, oh, my youthful years 

The Germans have stolen away

But even now all around the budding trees

Everything is blossoming, blooming, growing green.

As our lives used to flourish,

Back then, in Tulchin.

The time comes when the trees 

Shed all the beautiful blossoms,

Just like this fickle, fleeting life of ours

[Which] is now losing its bloom.

Wherever you look, wherever you go

People wander about the paths…

But our lives will be bright again

Just like [they] were, in those old days.

Oh, the lonely orphans

Wander around alone.

And that bloody word “death”

Surrounds you wherever you go.

The people fall [dead] like flies, 

Just from hunger, and from [the] cold.

Our suffering [and] our sorrows

Will soon be known to the whole world.

Suh loss will never happen again

[This waste of] innocent Jewish blood

[The blood] that’s now spilling

In Europe, at the [hands] of the bandits

It is because of [them] that people wander

On the paths to Pechere

Let us shine our light-filled lives

From the previous days. 

Let us respond to the murders: 

Brothers, [we will] resist with an uprising, 

We will take charge, brothers, 

With rifles in our hands.

However we can inflict pain --

[On] our angry, wild enemy 

[We will] make his life bitter

Destruction and darkness shall come upon him!

Приходи, опять помянем

Те былые времена, 

Нашу жизнь и нашу радость, 

Как светила нам она. 

Наши муки, наши слёзы

Им конца и края нет. 

Ой вы годы молодые, 

Немец их  отнял навек. 

Только юные деревья

Зеленеют по весне. 

Так и мы цвели когда-то

В нашем славном Тульчине. 

Но однажды и с деревьев

Вдруг слетит цветенье прочь. 

Так и в яркой этой жизни

Каждый день сменяет ночь. 

Здесь ли встанем, тут ли глянем,

Лица скорбные одни. 

Неужели мы воспрянем, 

Как тогда, в былые дни? 

Посмотри, кругом сироты

Как в кровавый час чумы. 

Поминутно слово “мёртвый”

Отовсюду слышим мы. 

Всюду люди мрут как мухи, 

Голод, холод, жизни нет. 

Нашу ярость, наши муки

Пусть  узнает целый свет,  

Чтоб напрасно не пропала

Кровь невинная людей, 

Та, которой всю Европу

Окропил палач-злодей. 

Все идем долиной смертной,  

Всех в Печоре ждёт беда.

Но не гаснет в нашем сердце

Свет надежды никогда. 

Так давайте же скорее 

На убийц нагоним страх! 

Потревожим их, евреи, 

С трёхлинейками в руках.