Partisan song from Vilna ghetto sung by Annie Lederhendler

Thanks so much for this, lagatta.

In my youth, as the child of survivors, there was no such thing yet as "Holocaust memorial day". Even the term "Holocaust" (referring to the genocide of the 6 million) was a relatively recent usage (around 1970s I believe) - my parents always called it (in Yiddish) either "the war" or "the destruction" ("hurban", a Hebrew loan-word reminiscent of "hurban beit ha'mikdash", the destruction of Solomon's temple). Every year we gathered at a synagogue, or a community hall, and commemorated the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (April 19 - May 16, 1943). And we sang this song, in Yiddish ("Zog Nit Kaynmol" - "Never Say" - the Partisan Song). Paul Robeson performed it in Moscow in 1949. The lyrics were by Hirsch Glick, who was indeed interned in the Vilna ghetto, and is presumed to have been murdered in 1944 at the age of 22. He chose a tune by Dmitry Koprass, a Soviet composer.

My mother in particular always told us kids that one lesson of the Nazi genocide was that any kind of racism is wrong. May she rest in peace.

ETA: By the way - it's usually known as the song of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Hirsch Glick wrote it when he heard about the uprising.

Yes, the version I found is in the archives of the Jewish Public library here, which at the time of the event was located at the corner of Esplanade and Mont-Royal.

As I'm writing this Mino Picak by Samian has come on (Ici Musique, Radio-Canada). It is also a story of survival after other attempted genocides, right here. I just sent birthday greetings to an older friend whose Viennese Jewish family had the foresight to leave for Brazil under the Austrofascists (think the fascists fighting the workers at their social housing complex in the old film "Julia") before the actual Nazis annexed Austria. The Google doodle was of Freud's birthday, which sparked my memory. He just missed Marx's birthday (the 5th).