Today in the “beautiful songs that I’m definitely not going to add to any playlist”: Friling!
I wander through the ghetto
From lane to lane
Useless, no solace I find.
My beloved is gone
How can I go on?
Someone, oh say just a word!
My house is aglow now
The sky’s like a blue dome
But what is there left in my life?
I stand like a beggar
At each of these doorways
And beg for a little bit of sunRefrain
Springtime, please take my sorrow
And bring my loved one,
My dear one back to me.
Springtime, upon your wings of blue
Take my heart with you
And bring love back to meI go to my work
And pass by our small house
In sadness, the door is closed tight
The days is full of sunlight
But flowers won’t bloom now,
They’re wilting, for them too it’s night
At night when returning
The sadness is burning
Right here love, you waited for me
Right here in the shadows
I still hear your footsteps
You kissed me so passionatelyRefrain
Springtime is with us
This year very early
My longing for you is in bloom.
I see you before me
Adorned with spring flowers
Smiling, you will greet me soon
The sun’s rays have lit up
The garden with sunlight,
Turning the hard earth to green.
My dearest, my loved one
Are you gone forever?
I can’t get you out of my mind.
Written by Shmerle Kaczerginski about his wife, who died in the ghetto. He escaped, joined the partisans, survived, remarried, preserved most of the Holocaust songs we know, had a meshugeneh daughter, moved to Argentina, died in a plane crash in 1954. The music is by Abraham Brudno, who died in Klooga concentration camp in Estonia.