With Songs on Their Lips

The work brigades, arranged m military forms, would march out early each morning. While passing through the town, especially near the Schupo building, they were required to sing marching songs. In content the songs were mostly crude and amateur. The lowbrows among the inmates would think up “dirty” lyrics to fit familiar tunes, and their “naturalistic language” renders them unfit for recording here. The singing was intended to prove to the world that life in the camp made people hale and hearty. The Germans seemed to find a sadistic pleasure in hearing their victims sing.

As is known, orchestras played in all of the large camps, accompanying the work brigades as they marched out through the gates. It was to the sounds of recorded music, blaring from loudspeakers, that millions created in His image met their end in so many extermination camps. In Skalat, as in all other camps, songs were created that depicted camp life in all its sorrow. Typical is the following song, which was written in the Kamionka Camp by an unknown author. The song was sung on various occasions by the inmates of the Skalat Camp.

In nineteen hundred and forty-two,
A new decree to us came through,
Each father his son and daughter must lead,
Like a butcher with cattle, the slaughter feed,
Refrain:

Oh, what can we do and what can we say?

We are caught in the trap the Nazis lay.

Oh, comrades and brothers, in camp we are caught:

How dark our world and our lives are naught.
Friday, oh Friday: on Sabbath eves,
Each Jew sits and each Jew grieves:
With nothing to drink and nothing to eat
A slap in the face is all he receives!
Refrain:

Oh, what can we do and what can we say?.. etc.
On Sabbath, on Sabbath, on the Sabbath at dawn
“Get out and get working until you're worn!”
I want so much to see my home town
But the work order as yet has not come down.
Refrain:

Oh, what can we do and what can we say?..etc.
Comrade, oh comrade, dear brother of mine,
One mother bore both of us in a distant time.
Today they still call you by your true name
But me they call “Scarecrow!”, to my shame.
Refrain:

Oh, what can we do and what can we say?..etc.

The song, in its simplicity, powerfully reflects the daily life in the camp. The tragedy of the camp people is reflected in both a serious and ironic form. One camp Jew envies another; so alike are they that it could be said that' one mother bore them both. 'Yet, one of them is still healthy enough to work and be regarded as human, hence called by his real name - while the other, ill and exhausted, is considered one of the kalibraki. The administrators are unconcerned whether a person has food or drink, but their supply of beatings is never exhausted. The camp Jew often yearns to see his town, to meet familiar people and perhaps to snatch an extra bit of bread, but the work-column, confined and under guard, has not yet been ordered to march to the workplace.

So sang the camp Jew in Kamionka, and so he sang, too, in Skalat. With a song on his lips he marched through the streets - while silently enduring brutality and pain.

Footnotes:

58 groschen - Pennies, from Polish grosz. Return

59 Judenfrei - Free of Jews. Return

60 Shavuot - The Feast of Weeks, a Jewish holiday - celebrated seven after Passover. Return

61 Horst Wessel Song - A Nazi song. Return

62 The following four chapters describes the origins and functioning of the Skalat Camp and, therefore, go back in time when the camp and the ghetto co-existed. L. Milch Return

63 Kalibraki -The “Shit Brigade” in the Skalat Camp (the crippled, aged and sick). Return

64 “Achtung!” - “Attention!” Return

65 Apel Platz - Roll call square. Return

66 Befehl - Command (at your command). Return

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