Small Riga Ghetto

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The artist Schelkan, who had not performed in the ghetto, tried to comfort
the broken hearts in the satellite camps somewhat through his art. The folk
songs he performed in his lion's voice (schaagis ari) moved us deeply, for
they were so appropriate to the time. The songs "Litwische Stetele" (Lithuanian
Towns) and "Der Becher" (The Pitcher) were always in his repertoire.
The first one reminded us, the "half-Litvaks", of earlier, happier times. And
"The Pitcher" with its enchanting text by the great poet Frug always made a
deep impression.
Frug's text is based on the following legend: a pitcher stands in the sky, and
all Jewish tears fall into it and are collected there. When this pitcher is full, the
Messiah will come. Now we really had to ask whether so many tears had still
not filled it up. But perhaps the tears in this pitcher were drying up again?
These words were so much more relevant to our time than to the one in which
the poet had written them. Yet in spite of the incalculable number of tears shed
in recent years, the pitcher had still not been filled up!
But it's only a legend, after all!
Numerous artists entertained us in the satellite camps with a great variety of
performances (Aronsohn-Arnow, Kotzer, Scheftelowitsch, Schalit, Gustav Joffe,
Sperling-Tschuzhoj, Salomon Ostrowski, Gottlieb, Foma Fomin, Brandt,
Schapiro and others).
The engineer Kostia Kaplan, who had learned "magic" in Vienna, offered us
true marvels of this art.
The popular songs that were very often sung during that period were "Habeit
min haschomaim urei" (Look down from heaven and see), "Ich bin rot und du
bist schwarz", * which was composed in the Daugavpils ghetto, and "Am
Prager Tor" (At the Prague Gate). ** The "Paplaken Italians' Song" was composed
in the Paplaken peat-cutting' satellite camp.
There were also a few cantors, truly talented people, from Cologne and
Hanover in the German ghetto.
The arrival of the Vilno Jews considerably expanded our repertoire of ghetto
songs. We could hear the women from Vilno singing in Kaiserwald, the HKP,
the Daugavpils factories, the AEG and in other satellite camps.
Their ghetto songs and folk songs were marked by a particular beauty and
depth. The songs "Panar", "Vilno, Vilno", "Zog nit keinmol as du gehst dem
* [Ed.: Weil ich bin weiss und er ist schwarz (since I am white and he is black.)]
** [Ed.: Composed in the Riga ghetto.]