Szydłowiec Nign I
Analysis and contextual notes by D. Zisl Slepovitch.
All songs transcribed, translated, scored, arranged, and produced by Dmitri Zisl Slepovitch.
Biography
Jack M. was born in Szydłowiec, Poland in 1913. In his testimony, Jack recalls attending cheder, then public school; visiting his grandmother in Chlewiska; apprenticeship as a tailor at age fourteen; working in Warsaw; military service in Skierniewice from 1937 to 1939; German invasion; one brother fleeing to the Soviet zone (he perished); slave labor in Jósefów; ghettoization; hiding during round-ups; his family’s deportation; incarceration in Wolanów, Skarżysko-Kamienna, Sulejów, Laura, Dachau, Buchenwald, and Allach; slave labor in HASAG factories; liberation from an evacuation train; living in Feldafing displaced persons camp; hearing from his uncle through the Red Cross; and emigration to the United States. Mr. M. discusses details of prewar life; some guards who helped him; the deaths of his entire family; and a 1980 trip to Poland.
A survivor of Szydłowiec ghetto (Poland), he remembered and beautifully performed a wealth of traditional repertoire, including musical and theatrical pieces. His interview includes traditional Yiddish songs of various genres: badkhones (wedding jester’s rhymes), Hassidic niggunim (paraliturgical tunes without words), a Biblical play “Mekhiras Yoysef” (The Trade of Joseph), which was quite widespread in Eastern and Central Europe for a few centuries as part of the folk theatre and Purimshpil tradition dating back to the 1400’s; Polish songs that Jack remembered from street and the army, including some anti-Semitic and frivolous rhymes presumably made up by his senior officer; and many other rare pieces, some of which are likely the only (or one of the very few) such recordings in existence. In addition to his singing, Jack was also a gifted storyteller. Choosing just a few songs for this record was not an easy task.