Shtil di nakht

The song "Shtil di nakht" was written by the young Vilna poet Hirsch Glik, who also wrote "Zog nit keynmol az du geyst dem letstn veg" (Never say that you are walking the final road). Glik was a member of the underground resistance in the ghetto, and wrote this song to commemorate the partisans' first successful act of sabotage by one young woman and two young men. His lyrics focus on the heroic actions of the female partisan Vitke Kempner.
Glik survived the liquidation of the vilna ghetto and was sent to a concentration camp in Estonia. In July 1944, shortly before the camp was to be destroyed by the Nazis in the face of the rapidly approaching Red Army, Glik and forty other prisoners managed to escape and flee to the surrounding forests. There Glik joined up with a group of partisans, where he and all of his comrades were killed in combat with Nazi forces (see http://holocaustmusic.ort.org/places/....

Lyrics: Hirsch Glik (1922-1944)

shtil di nakht iz oysgeshternt
un der frozt er hot gebrent,
tsi gedenkstu vi ikh hob dikh gelernt,
haltn a shpayer in di hent.

a moyd, a peltsl un a beret,
un halt in hant fezt a nagan,
a moyd mit a zametenem ponim,
hit op dem soynes karavan.

getsilt, geshozn un getrofn,
hot ir kleyninker piztoyl,
an oyto a fulinkn mit vofn,
farhaltn hot zi mit eyn koyl.

fartog fun vald aroysgekrokhn,
mit shney girlandn oyf di hor,
gemutikt fun kleyninkn nitsokhn,
far undzer nayem frayen dor.