Moments of Hope

Yiddish poet and composer Mordecai Gebirtig was born in Kraków, Poland. He fought in World War I, worked as an actor, and published songs in the newspaper of the Jewish Social Democratic Party of Galicia. Gebirtig published his first collection of songs, Folkstimlekh, in 1920. Gebirtig is perhaps most famous for his song “S’brent,” written in 1938 following the pogrom in Przytyk. Gebirtig and his family were interned in the Kraków ghetto in 1942, and he was killed while in transit to Belzec concentration camp.