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  • Music of the Holocaust

Songs of the ghettos, concentration camps, and World War II partisan outposts

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Though (Khotsh)

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Lyrics by: Zelik Barditshever

Composer: Zelik Barditshever

Language: Yiddish


Recorded by Ben Stonehill, Hotel Marseilles, New York, summer 1948

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    Though

    The song was written by Zelik Barditshever (1898–1937), an itinerant teacher, poet, and playwright from Belts, Bessarabia (present-day Bălți, Moldava). Collected by the Yiddish writer Leibu Levin, it…

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    The US Holocaust Memorial Museum may use your comments for educational, research, and Museum purposes, including publication. A selection of comments may be posted on our website, at our discretion.

The song was written by Zelik Barditshever (1898–1937), an itinerant teacher, poet, and playwright from Belts, Bessarabia (present-day Bălți, Moldava). Collected by the Yiddish writer Leibu Levin, it first appeared in a volume of Barditshever’s works published in Czernowitz, Romania (now Chernivtsi, Ukraine) in 1939.

Listen to

  • The Name Jew (Der Nomen Yid)

Lyrics in English

What are you singing?  What is this song called?
“Khotsh” (Though).
Very good.

Though I have no home, no land to live in,
The whole world hunts me, yet I don’t give in.
I live. Oh, I live.

A curse on my enemies—
What sense, what meaning
is there to my life,
to my endless wanderings?
Yet still I live.  Oh, I live.

Though I have no feet, no hands, no part of me intact,
Yet I want to wildly dance.
I dance. Oh, I dance.

A curse on my enemies—
What sense, what meaning
is there to my life,
to my endless wanderings?
Yet still I dance. Oh, I dance.

A curse on my enemies—
What sense, what meaning
is there to my life,
to my endless wanderings?
Yet still I dance.

Though I have no voice left, no way to make a sound,
Yet I want to wildly sing.
So I sing. Oh, I sing.

A curse on my enemies—
What sense, what meaning
is there to my life,
to my endless wanderings?
Yet still I sing. Oh, I sing.

And so I live!

Ben Stonehill

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United States Holocaust Memorial Museum United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW
Washington, DC 20024-2126
Main telephone: 202.488.0400
TTY: 202.488.0406

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