- Title Pages
- The Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies
- The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization
- Epigraph
- Dedication
- Editors and Advisers
- Preface
- Polin
- Polin
- Note on Place Names
- Note on Transliteration
- Introduction
-
In Pre-War Poland The Badkhn: From Wedding Stage to Writing Desk - Remembrance of Things Past: Klezmer Musicians of Galicia, 1870‒1940
-
Early Recordings of Jewish Music in Poland
-
Jewish Theatre in Poland
-
A Tuml in the Shtetl: Khayim Betsalel Grinberg’s Di khevre-kedishe sude
-
Mordechai Gebirtig: The Folk Song and the Cabaret Song
- Simkhe Plakhte: From ‘Folklore’ to Literary Artefact
- Between Poland and Germany: Jewish Religious Practices in Illustrated Postcards of the Early Twentieth Century
-
Papers for the Folk: Jewish Nationalism and the Birth of the Yiddish Press in Galicia
-
Shund and the Tabloids: Jewish Popular Reading in Inter-War Poland
-
Dos yidishe bukh alarmirt! Towards the History of Yiddish Reading in Inter-War Poland
- Exploiting Tradition: Religious Iconography in Cartoons of the Polish Yiddish Press
-
After Life From ‘Madagaskar’ to Sachsenhausen: Singing about ‘Race’ in a Nazi Camp -
The Badkhn in Contemporary Hasidic Society: Social, Historical, and Musical Observations
- Transmigrations: Wolf Krakowski’s Yiddish Worldbeat in its Socio-Musical Context
-
‘The Time of Vishniac’: Photographs of Pre-War East European Jewry in Post-War Contexts
-
Repopulating Jewish Poland—in Wood
-
The Kraków Jewish Culture Festival
- Select Bibliography of Blejwas’s Works
- Notes on the Contributors
- Glossary
- Index
From ‘Madagaskar’ to Sachsenhausen: Singing about ‘Race’ in a Nazi Camp
From ‘Madagaskar’ to Sachsenhausen: Singing about ‘Race’ in a Nazi Camp
- Chapter:
- (p.269) After Life From ‘Madagaskar’ to Sachsenhausen: Singing about ‘Race’ in a Nazi Camp
- Source:
- Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 16
- Author(s):
Bret Werb
Barbara Milewski
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
This chapter studies the large and varied repertoire of songs created by Polish prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. Most common of these compositions are parodies of songs popular before the war. Drawing on well-known melodies and familiar styles such as the tango, waltz, or foxtrot, prisoners who listened to, created, and performed these songs could reclaim, if only for a moment, some part of their lost popular culture. Yet paradoxically, and as many survivors attest, these same songs, with their unsparing depictions of camp life, helped prisoners push aside thoughts of life before captivity and so preserve their mental balance during those difficult years. The chapter then looks at one parody song, ‘Heil, Sachsenhausen’, and also examines the song parodied, ‘Madagaskar’, itself a satirical consideration of the Jewish predicament in inter-war Poland. ‘Heil, Sachsenhausen’ served not only as a narrative of camp experience, but also as a darkly comic condemnation of Nazi ‘racial purity’ laws. Moreover, this parody song may have functioned as a zone of inquiry for the author's personal reflections on German-Polish and Polish-Jewish relations before and during the Second World War.
Keywords: Polish prisoners, Nazi concentration camps, parody songs, Jewish popular culture, camp life, captivity, inter-war Poland, Nazi racial purity laws, German-Polish relations, Polish-Jewish relations
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- Title Pages
- The Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies
- The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization
- Epigraph
- Dedication
- Editors and Advisers
- Preface
- Polin
- Polin
- Note on Place Names
- Note on Transliteration
- Introduction
-
In Pre-War Poland The Badkhn: From Wedding Stage to Writing Desk - Remembrance of Things Past: Klezmer Musicians of Galicia, 1870‒1940
-
Early Recordings of Jewish Music in Poland
-
Jewish Theatre in Poland
-
A Tuml in the Shtetl: Khayim Betsalel Grinberg’s Di khevre-kedishe sude
-
Mordechai Gebirtig: The Folk Song and the Cabaret Song
- Simkhe Plakhte: From ‘Folklore’ to Literary Artefact
- Between Poland and Germany: Jewish Religious Practices in Illustrated Postcards of the Early Twentieth Century
-
Papers for the Folk: Jewish Nationalism and the Birth of the Yiddish Press in Galicia
-
Shund and the Tabloids: Jewish Popular Reading in Inter-War Poland
-
Dos yidishe bukh alarmirt! Towards the History of Yiddish Reading in Inter-War Poland
- Exploiting Tradition: Religious Iconography in Cartoons of the Polish Yiddish Press
-
After Life From ‘Madagaskar’ to Sachsenhausen: Singing about ‘Race’ in a Nazi Camp -
The Badkhn in Contemporary Hasidic Society: Social, Historical, and Musical Observations
- Transmigrations: Wolf Krakowski’s Yiddish Worldbeat in its Socio-Musical Context
-
‘The Time of Vishniac’: Photographs of Pre-War East European Jewry in Post-War Contexts
-
Repopulating Jewish Poland—in Wood
-
The Kraków Jewish Culture Festival
- Select Bibliography of Blejwas’s Works
- Notes on the Contributors
- Glossary
- Index
