RE: Maramaros

[Leonard Koenick <lkoenick...>]

I have owned the Muzsikas album for several years now and value it and more 
of their music.  I have heard them in concert pay tribute to the Jewish 
music heritage as being 100 percent Jewish and 100 percent Hungarian.

There is one part of the album, though that has bothered me.  In the notes 
to the song, Ani Maamim, we are told "He remembers that Jews who returned 
from Auschwitz used to sing this song weeping."  It is identified later as 
from Maimonides' 13 principals of faith which it surely is.  The particular 
verse usually used is verse 12 which refers to the faith in the coming of 
the Messiah.

When I was younger, I was always taught that this song was sung by Jews as 
they went to their deaths as a profession of their faith.  It was treated 
almost as an anthem of the camps.  From a more experienced perspective, of 
course, I am certain that this was not universally true.  But nowhere in 
the notes to the album is there a mention of that obvious connection to why 
they were weeping.  I've always wanted to ask them how this was missed.

Leonard Koenick


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