Of all the people who were captured by the Gestapo, I’ve also mentioned Hirshke Glik. I can’t get him out of my mind. It was just days ago I spoke with him about his songs.

How strange things are for us in the ghetto. It seems that everyone knows that their own end is approaching. Yet, we talk mournfully about those who were taken and those who died. We often even have memorial services for them. In fact, just recently we held a memorial assembly for Dr. Tzemakh Shabad, another for Dr. Kovarski and still another for the teachers Gershteyn and Pludermakher. ^{2 2} Kaczerginski here lists four different prominent leaders of the Vilna community: the doctor, co-founder of YIVO and prolific writer Tsemach Shabad (1864-1935); physician, cultural and pedagogical leader Dr. Hertz Kovarski (1869-1941); musician and musical director of the Vilna Ghetto schools Yankev Gershteyn (d.1943); and professional trained teacher and pedagogical writer Gershon Pludermakher (1876-1942). Further biographical information on these figures can be found under their named entries in the digitized Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur. People gave mournful speeches and shared memories.

Recently, at the end of a synagogue service, as everyone wept the Kaddish prayer for the dead, I was struck by a chilling thought: They, who had already passed, were the lucky ones. They, at least, have someone to say Kaddish for them for now. Who will say Kaddish for us? Who will remember us?

But life goes on, making its daily demands on us…

Hirshke, Hirshke Glik.

The first time I met the fifteen-year-old Hirshke was after a “Yung Vilne” evening in a Vilna hall.

“I write too,” he whispered to me quietly. “And there are others who write as well. A whole group of us.”

“A whole group…” I was really curious. “Who are you?”

A few days later, they approached me. Hirshke Glik, Sheva Feygenberg, Moyshe Gurin and Rabinovitch—mere children. ^{3 3} Sheva Feygenberg (Augustów, 1922-Rechovot, 2012) would later be known in the USSR as Sheva Kantsedikas and in Israel as Elisheva Kohen-Tsedek. Her letters with her husband are digitally available. Moshe Gurin (Gurevich 1921-1990) survived the war in the Vilna ghetto and in other German camps. In 1947 he began life in Israel, writing and publishing in a number of esteemed journals. Further biographical information can be found in the digitized Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur. Poverty had driven them out of their homes and forced them to look for work. The boys had known each other for a long time. Now they lived on the same street, Little Shnipishok street. They had also gone to the same school, “Beys Yehudo.” When they found out that Sheva Feygenberg wrote as well, they invited her to join their circle where they read their works to one another.

So everyone read something they had written and I, with increasing surprise and delight, listened and thought: So young — and so talented! If there were someone who could work with them, there’d be a lot of ‘nakhes’ to be had. I gave them my warmest words of encouragement and helped them in whatever way I could.

Shortly thereafter, Leyzer Volf who lived on their street, began working with the youngsters. ^{4 4} Leyzer Volf (1910-1943) was a founding member of Yung Vilne. Further information on his biography can be found in the YIVO Encyclopedia. Together they created a journal called “Yungvald” (Young Forest) and managed to publish several issues. The group became known by that name.

Initially, Hirshke had been working in Yosef Shub’s paper shop on Little Stefan Street, but when he found a better paying job at Biankonski’s iron shop on Zawalna, he left Shub’s. There were no regular hours in these jobs, and I would often see Hirskhe going home late at night, thoroughly exhausted. He even stopped going to the youth group where he had previously spent his free time.

Hirshke was the head of the pack even though he was the youngest of them. I remember him in short pants and laced-up boots, with closely cropped hair and bright, piercing blue eyes. Now, in the ghetto, it appeared he hadn’t changed.

He wasn’t, however, in the ghetto for very long. He was sent to the work-camp,Biała Waka, outside Vilna, where he, along with several hundred other Jews, worked digging up peat. The very harsh life and work conditions there strengthened Hirshke’s determination to artistically record what he was experiencing. After work, late into the night, in a dark storeroom where people slept on hard benches under a roof full of holes, he took no rest. He wrote and wrote.

Back in the ghetto, the literature society which organized competitions for creative writing gave Glik awards on two separate occasions.

Hirshke came into the ghetto from time to time, and the only place he visited was the youth club, where he read his writings for the group, garnering great appreciation from his peers.

At the beginning of 1943 the work camp was liquidated and its workers were sent back to the ghetto. Difficult days began. It was around this time that Glik wrote his song.

What were those days like?

April 5, 1943.

Sunlight barely managed to penetrate the lower levels and alleyways of the ghetto. The pale rays of light made people yearn for a bit of greenery, sun, clean air and water. Standing not far from the ghetto entrance, enveloped in this feeling of yearning, I saw a young man covered in blood slip in from the street and disappear quickly through the gateway. We rushed to him, tore off his clothes, washed away the blood, and bound his wounded shoulder.

“I’m coming from Ponar,” he whispered, knowing that we wouldn’t bother him with questions at that point.

We stood numb and frozen.

“Everyone, everyone, was shot to death.” Tears rolled down his face.

“Who? The four thousand people being sent to Kovno?”

“Yes!”

This had happened at daybreak on the fifth of April 1943.

The situation in the ghetto had been “stabilized” for the past year and a half. People thought the “Aktions” against hundreds of old people, individuals, or small groups were isolated incidents and had no bearing on the future existence of the ghetto. There were even those believers who thought that the Germans considered the Vilna Ghetto a “chosen” ghetto. ^{5 5} The Hebrew phrase “Ata bekhartonu,” (You have chosen us) appears in a prayer thanking God for having chosen the Jewish people to fulfill His commandments. Kaczerginski’s sense of irony is not lost here. The four thousand Jews who had been slaughtered that morning, however, suddenly brought the reality of death, which spares no one, right before the eyes of the believers.

The mood in the ghetto became more heated some weeks later when we heard the Polish secret radio station, Świt, announce the news:

“Hello, hello! The remaining Jews of the Warsaw ghetto have begun an armed resistance against the Nazis. The ghetto is in flames!”

The secret radio bulletin from the ghetto’s partisan organization reported just a few lines. We knew no details about the uprising; only those few sparks of words. But we saw the flames of the Warsaw ghetto in front of us, as well as the Jews who fought, with weapon in hand, for our honor.

The news of the uprising lifted our spirits and made us proud.

Days passed and we heard no more news about what was happening, but we imagined how our friends were fighting. It pained us to know that the battle was hardly equal. Still, the fact of the resistance made it easier to get through the days. We felt as though we’d sprouted wings. We looked back at the Nazis, our tormentors, with pride. And they knew what our new expressions signified. They understood and certainly more than one of them thought: “Who knows whether I, too, will need to fight against these Vilna Jews, and whether they will kill me.”

For the night of May 1st, we organized an event on Shavler Street. The evening was titled “Springtime in Yiddish Literature,” an innocent enough name. But the hundreds in attendance knew that they’d come to celebrate May Day.

One speaker presented, then another; one song, then another. Everything was permeated with the spirit of the Warsaw uprising.

“As we communally celebrate this first of May the Warsaw ghetto stands in battle. Honor to the fighters! Honor to the fallen,” the evening’s host, Herman Kruk called out. ^{6 6} Herman Kruk (1897-1944) was writer, Bundist and cultural activist. Further biographical information can be found in the digitized Leksikonfun der nayer yidisher. We all rose together.

The spirit of Warsaw’s fighters began to pulse through the crowded hall. We knew that come tomorrow, or the day after that, the radio would be telling the world about us. It would report that the Jews in the ghetto of Jerusalem of Lithuania had begun an armed uprising against the Nazis.

The hall grew deathly quiet. The sad tones of the ghetto performers rang out tremulously.

Unnoticed, Hirshke Glik appeared at my side.

“Nu, Hirshke, how are you?”

“I’ve written a new poem. Want to hear it?”

“A poem in the middle of all this? Okay, read it aloud.”

“Not now. I’ll come by tomorrow, in the morning. It’s a poem to be sung.”

In the morning, Hirshke was at my door bright and early.

“Just listen carefully,” he appealed, “I’ll start now.”

He began to sing quietly but passionately, with all his heart. His eyes shone fervently:

“…and our longed-for hour will yet arrive.”

Where did this confident belief come from? Hirshke left me no time to think. The tremor in his voice disappeared. He hammered out the words confidently as one foot tapped along in a march.

…. “Amidst falling walls a people took a stand

And sang this song with pistols in their hands.”

“Wonderful, Hirshke, Just wonderful!” I gripped his hands. His words made me feel the effect the Warsaw uprising had had on him.

And so the months of May, June, July and August went by. But for us, the partisans, the days and weeks of April’s Warsaw uprising remained very much present.

The ghetto partisan administration decided that Glik’s song ought to become a hymn for the partisans. But no one needed to wait for that decision. The song had already spread throughout the ghetto.

Glik wrote many songs and poems. Few are still known. As far as I know, his most powerful song was “Zog Nit Keyn Mol.” Others also felt that way and appreciated it, which is why I believe this song will become THE SONG that inspires future generations to remember and remain on guard.

And now remembering Hirshke, I know that it is precisely because of that song that I cannot rest. The boy took a Cossack-style melody and fit in his own words so perfectly that it seems that no other melody would have worked for such words, and no other words could have worked for such a melody. ^{7 7} The Partisan Hymn was sung to the melody of the Pokrass brothers’ Cossack march, composed for the Soviet film “Shel soldat s fronta” (1939). Nechama Lifshitz (1927-2017), Yiddish and Hebrew soloist in the Soviet Union, published an article entitled “About the Reincarnation of a Melody” (Vegn a gilgul fun a nigun) in the journal of the Yiddish Cultural Center “Sholem Aleichem”: Undzer shrift, no.7-10, 1977, pp.78-9. In the article she details a post-concert meeting with Dimitry Pokrass sharing a “secret” with her: his musical inspiration for the Cossack march came from Mark Warshawsky’s “Oyfn Pripetchik,” especially its stormy refrains and passionate lines.

“Where is Hirshke now?”

“There, where we will all be,” I answer my own question. ^{8 8} Hirshke was never heard from after the war’s end. There are varying reports about his death (see the ORT Music and the Holocaust site and Holocaust Research Project for two possible sources) . The ambiguity about the last days of his life may be reflected in Kaczerginski’s question at the chapter’s end.