Shoshana Kalisch (Galanta, New York), vocals; survivor of Auschwitz,
where she learnt (at least 2 of) the songs she sings on the CD
June Tabor (England), vocals; who first popularised Eric Bogle's "Flowers of
the Forrest" (performed on the CD) and "Waltzing Matilda"
Kristien Dehollander (leper), vocals;
Marwan Zoueni (Beirouth, Brussel), vocals, ud; an Arab who has written songs
and poetry marking the war in Beruit.
& The Lone Tree Orchestra:
Huw Warren (Wales), piano, accordion, cello;
Mark Emerson (England), violin, viola, accordion;
Frans Leven (Brussel), double bass, guitar;
Alfred den Ouden (Dordrecht, Dranouter), concertina, guitar, accordion,
Flemish bagpipes;
Hissam (Syria, Brussel), darbouka;
Rossignol (Tunis, Brussel), ney |
- June Tabor: Will Ye Go to Flanders? [Trad. Scotland] (3:11)
- Kristien Dehollander: Klaaglied van de Vrouwen [Trad. Jan Hardeman, Marieke Demeester] (3:01)
- Marwan Zoueini: Ma mère et la fête [Marwan Zoueini] (4:41)
- Shoshana Kalisch: Di Nakht [Mikhl Gelbart, Aaron Domnits] (2:22)
- June Tabor: The Nurse, Dorothy Nicol [Dorothy Nicol, VAD at No. 11 General Hospital, Camiers] (2:10)
- June Tabor: The Long, Long Trail [Stoddard King, Alonzo “Zo” Elliott] (4:08)
- June Tabor: The Reaper [Bill Caddick] (1:33)
- Marwan Zoueini: Nabwaina owtal el mochwar [Marwan Zoueini] (5:32)
- June Tabor, Kristien Dehollander, Shoshana Kalish: Und was bekam des Soldaten Weib? [Bertold Brecht, Kurt Weill] (3:17)
- Kristien Dehollander: Aux Soldats morts [Emile Verhaeren, Koen De Cauter] (4:44)
- The Lone Tree Orchestra: The Bloody Fields of Flanders [Trad. Scotland] (4:01)
- Kristien Dehollander: De Rode Heuvel [Montéhus, Krier, tune J. van de Merwe] (4:01)
- Shoshana Kalisch: Tsen Brider [Trad. - Roseberry D'Arguto] (5:09)
- Marwan Zoueini: Lwein Raïhine [Marwan Zoueini] (6:26)
- Shoshana Kalisch: Dos yingl vet zey firn [H. Leivick, Blume Mushkes-Saubel] (5:09)
- June Tabor: Aqaba [Bill Caddick] (4:44)
- Shoshana Kalisch: A nign [Lazar Weiner, L. Magister] (3:33)
- June Tabor / The Lone Tree Orchestra: No Man's Land / The Flowers of the Forest [Eric Bogle] (10;06)
|
4. The song was made particularly famous by Liuba
Levitska's interpretation. She was a young professional singer from
Vilnius, capital of Lithuania and before the war known as 'The Jerusalem of
Eastern Europe' because of its rich Jewish culture. In 1938 Liuba earned her
first successes at the Yiddish theatre and later she did equally well in
other important Jewish cultural centres in Warsaw and Moscow" During the
war she did not go into hiding, but went back to her family in the Vilnius
ghetto, and every day she worked in the Nazi work camp outside the ghetto.
From the first days of 1942 the Nazis started their systematic liquidation
of the ghetto inhabitants. People were rounded up in random raids and in the
nearby forest of Ponar they were shot dead into open mass graves.
On 18 January 1942 a number of ghetto dwellers organised a concert which
included Liuba
Levitska. The event was criticised by some because one does not sing
in a cemetary' but many more people were in favour. One of Liuba
Levitska's songs was "Di Nakht" and the poet Abraham Sutskever wrote "the audience stood in sacred silence, as one does in front of an open
grave. Each word, each sound, reminded us of the Ponar victims".
After
that performance Liuba
Levitska regularly took part in ghetto concerts. She was arrested in
January 1943 on the eve of a ghetto opera where she was to sing the main
part. She was held for a few weeks and tortured in the prison tower which
stood in the middle of the ghetto. There, each night, she sang for her
fellow prisoners from her cell, until one month later she, too, was executed
in Ponar. |