Daniel Kempin - Mordecai Gebirtig - Krakow Ghetto Notebook

Mordecai Gebirtig, born in Cracow in 1877, made his living as a carpenter but was celebrated throughout the Yiddish-speaking world as a folk poet and songwriter—the “troubadour of the Jewish people.” During World War II, he continued to write and perform, using the medium of song to chronicle his experiences under the German occupation. In June 1942, Gebirtig, age 65, was shot and killed by German soldiers when he refused to comply with a deportation order.

Gebirtig wrote Our Town is Burning in response to a 1936 pogrom in the Polish town of Przytyk. In retrospect, the song seems prophetic of the Holocaust, but Gebirtig had hoped its message (“Don't stand there, brothers, douse the fire!”) would be heard as an urgent call to action. He was reportedly gratified to learn, during the war, that Cracow's underground Jewish resistance had adopted Our Town is Burning as its anthem.

The song Our Town is Burning remains a popular recital piece that is performed at Holocaust commemoration ceremonies around the world.

"Arbetloze zenen mir, on a beged on a haym..." ("Unemployed are we, without clothes, without a home...") is the marching song of the poet Mordechai Gebirtig. Daniel Kempin devoted an entire album to this man: "Krakow Ghetto Notebook", recorded by the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC.

Daniel Kempin was born in Wiesbaden, Germany. He´s a member of the Jewish Community in Frankfurt am Main and studied music in Darmstadt, with several semesters of Jewish Studies at the University of Frankfurt and a Yeshiva in Jerusalem. He played concerts and gave workshops with jewish music since 1983 in Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Great Britain, Poland Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Israel and the USA.

Tracklist:

1. Your Kitten Is Hungry
2. Avreml the Pickpocket
3. Make Merry, Children Rejoice
4. Our Town Is Burning!
5. The Eve of Yom Kippur
6. Shifrele's Portrait
7. It Hurts
8. Moments of Despair
9. Moments of Confidence
10. My Krakow Farewell
11. It's Been So Long
12. Once I Had a Home
13. A Ray of Sunshine
14. My Dream
15. Tolling Bells
16. A Day of Revenge !
17. Our Springtime
18. In the Ghetto
19. It's Good

Daniel Kempin - Mordecai Gebirtig - Krakow Ghetto Notebook
(320 kbps, cover art included)