You can download this track here: [ Ссылка ]
Performed by: Miriam Waks (Vocals); Nathan Waks (Cello & Accordion); Sam Waks (Electronic programming / sound design)

Video footage compiled and edited by Candice Williams & Nathan Waks.

Ghosts of the Ghetto (Białystok, 1943) was composed by Miriam Waks, Nathan Waks, and Sam Waks in commemoration of the liquidation of the Bialystok ghetto during World War II and has been released publicly to coincide with Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day). The track references two prominent Bialystok musical personalities – tango composer Zygmunt Białostocki, and acclaimed opera singer Rosa Raisa, who often closed her recitals with the Yiddish piece Eli Eli (My God, why hast Thou forsaken me). The featured version of Eli Eli was recorded live in an 18th century French church by Miriam & Nathan Waks (vocals and cello).

The piece utilizes elements of classical, tango, and electronic sound design to create a vividly rendered sonic and visual landscape. A dark, and at times harrowing musical exploration of the atrocities of the holocaust, Ghosts of the Ghetto (Białystok, 1943) is ultimately a poignant reflection on the effects that blind prejudice and warfare have on the people and world we live in.

Ghosts of the Ghetto (Białystok, 1943) Lyrics

In dreams I return to
The world I once knew
Streets filled with homes
And skies filled with blue
Ghosts of the ghetto
Cry out in sweet song
In praise of a place
To which we belonged
In praise of a place
Where our blood was not wrong

Too soon this sweet dream
Has retreated with sleep
Replaced by the sounds
Of the vigil we keep
The guards of our freedom
Have robbed us of slumber
The names that we claimed
Reduced to a number

We ghosts of the ghetto
Are just as you find
A memory of God’s love
Held hostage in time
A people once chosen
We are as you see
The ghosts of the ghetto
Whose blood now flows free

(Miriam Waks © 2015)

свернуть