A Jewish Child

Lithuanian village small:
In a house behind a wall,
There’s a window open wide
And small children warm inside.
Little boys with flaxen hair,
Little girls with braids so fair,
And amongst them, shining, bright,
A pair of eyes as black as night.
Eyes so black and full of grace,
Little nose to match the face,
Rosy lips, for kisses made,
Curly hair of blackest shade.
One night his mother brought him here
In the dark, in dread and fear,
Kissed him long, with brimming eye,
Softly told him with a sigh:
Here, my child, is where you’ll be,
Listen now and look at me!
Here in hiding you will stay,
You’ll be better off that way.
Play as nicely as you can,
Be obedient, little man -
No more Yiddish songs for you,
Just forget that you’re a Jew.

And the child, he begs her stay:
Mommy, please don’t go away!
He sobs bitterly, alone;
Please don’t leave me on my own!
Then she kisses him again
And again to no avail.
He’s insisting: No and no!
I won’t stay, I want to go!
In her arms she gathers him,
Tenderly she mothers him,
And she sings him lullabies
Till he shuts his little eyes.
No more holding back her tears,
Nor her worries, nor her fears;
She must leave the house, the light,
And go out into the night
The mother wanders on and on,
Like her son, her voice is gone;
No-one cares about her fate
And she can but wait and wait.
As Yocheved, she’s bereaved,
For, like Moses in the weeds,
Lonely, somewhere in the wild
Is adrift her only child.

Words: Hanna Cheitin; Music: Unknown

Written in the ghetto of Shavle after he terrible “action” on children throughout ghettos and camps in Lithuania in March 1943. Only a few of the children escaped, some mothers smuggling them out of the ghettos to non-Jewish friends or abandoning them beside non-Jewish houses in order to save them. The author of the words is among those who survived the concentration camps.