Re: Shtil di nacht stilled

[Susan Lerner <meydele...>]

Just finished watching the documentary "Resistance" on PBS about Jewish 
partisans during WWII. I felt the film did a lot right, but it was very 
"Americanized."  No Yiddish and, amazingly, no contemporaneous Yiddish music!  
Given the extraordinary repertoire of songs coming out of the resistance, 
particularly from Vilna, this is really a significant omission. It is always 
wonderful to see and hear Vitke Kempner-Kovner tell the story of her experience 
blowing up a German train during the war (yes, I know about the dispute about 
whether the train was actually blown up, etc., but that's beside the point 
here).  The episode was the inspiration of Hersh Glick's beautiful Yiddish 
song, shtil di nacht, also known as Partisaner Lid.  But - no song in the film. 
 No mention of the song.  Clearly, the filmmakers wanted to "set history 
straight" about Jewish Resistance, and I certainly don't want to detract from 
that aim, but wouldn't music of the period have helped?

Here we are,  we've got the Yiddish Radio Project on NPR as part of All Things 
Considered, but Yiddish music that was actually sung by the fighters isn't 
"universal" enough.  s'iz nisht geshtoygn un nisht gefloygn (It never rose and 
it never flew, i.e. it doesn't make any sense). It's enough to make a 
Yiddishist cry - or organize!

Shira Lerner