Here I visit the Fortress Complex with my guide Anton.  The fortress, as the name implies, is in Brest, Belarus, formerly the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.

The fortress was attacked by the wehrmacht on June 22, 1941.  The last defender did not surrender until a month later.  The fortress is a symbol of the resolve, the heroism and the tenacity of the Red Army and the NKVD.

The fortress was secured in about a week after fierce fighting.  The Soviet forces were outnumbered, 9,000 to 17,000.

My guide Anton grew up in the fortress complex in a military garrison on the Polish border.

For more on the defense of the fortress, you can read _Brest Fortress_ by Sergei Smirnov and watch the films “Immortal Garrison” and “Fortress of War”.

Of course, there is also wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Brest_Fortress

If anyone would like to pay the fortress a visit, which I do recommend, the Belarusski government has a website with more information.  The visitors center at the Brest Intourist Hotel also can set you up with guides.

http://www.brest-fortress.by/en/

I’ll be publishing more videos of the fortress this week.  Watch this space.

My great-grandmother used to sing Mayn Rue Plats to my grandmother at her home in Nyesviz.

I like Daniel Kahn’s interpretation but di Klezmorim’s arrangement is more in keeping with the religious and traditional influences in the song.

The next song di Shuve or “The Oath” is the anthem of the Jewish Bund/Arbeter Ring/Workman’s Circle

Mayn Rue Plats

Nit zukh mikh vu di mirtn grinen.
Gefinst mikh dortn nit, mayn shats.
Vu lebns velkn bay mashinen,
Dortn iz mayn rue plats.

Nit zukh mikh vu di feygl zingen.
Gefinst mikh dortn nit, mayn shats.
A shklaf bin ikh vu keytn klingen,
Dortn iz mayn rue plats.

Nit zukh mikh vu fontanen shpritsn.
Gefinst mikh dortn nit, mayn shats.
Vu trern rinen, tseyner kritsn,
Dortn iz mayn rue plats.

Un libstu mikh mit varer libe,
To kum tsu mir, mayn guter shats,
Un hayter oyf mayn harts di tribe
Un makh mir zis mayn rue plats.

Don’t look for me where myrtles are green.
You will not find me there, my beloved.
Where lives wither at the machines,
There is my resting place.

Don’t look for me where birds sing.
You will not find me there, my beloved.
I am a slave where chains ring,
There is my resting place.

Don’t look for me where fountains spray.
You will not find me there, my beloved.
Where tears flow and teeth gnash,
There is my resting place.

And if you love me with true love,
So come to me, my good beloved,
And cheer my gloomy heart
And make sweet my resting place.

Di shvue

Brider un shvester fun arbet un neyt
Ale vus zaynen tsezeyt un tseshpreyt,
Tsuzamen, tsuzamen, di fon iz greyt,
Zi flatert fun tsorn, fun blut iz zi reyt!
A shvue, a shvue, af lebn un teyt.

Himl un erd veln undz oyshern
Eydes veln zayn di likhtike shtern
A shvue fun blut un a shvue fun trern,
Mir shvern, mir shvern, mir shvern!

Mir shvern a trayhayt on grenetsn tsum bund.
Nor er ken di shklafn bafrayen atsind.
Di fon di reyte iz heykh un breyt.
Zi flatert fun tsorn, fun blut iz zi reyt!
A shvue, a shvue, af lebn un teyt.

The Oath

Brothers and sisters in toil and struggle
All who are dispersed far and wide
Come together, the flag is ready
It waves in anger, it is red with blood!
Swear an oath of life and death!

Heaven and earth will hear us,
The light stars will bear witness.
An oath of blood, an oath of tears,
We swear, we swear, we swear!

We swear an endless loyalty to the Bund.
Only it can free the slaves now.
The red flag is high and wide.
It waves in anger, it is red with blood!
Swear an oath of life and death!

Okay after all that heavy, depressing stuff about the social revolution and genocide, a little less seriousness as my guide Anton and I go to the movies in Brest, Belarus.

Okay, the theater used to be a synagogue, so there’s a tragic undertone, but nevertheless, we happen upon Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore and I kid Adam about growing up in New Hampshire, so the video turns out to be somewhat more light-hearted.

 

 

 

34 years later Grandma

 I stand before your house

 Vulitsa Pervoe Maya

 Your house is no more

 

There it is

A parking lot

 

The orchard you told me about

The historian knew where from your description

I carried it with me all these years

 

 

I came in May

The trees were in bloom

It was quite pretty

 

The shul and your stone house were no more

all that remained a marker of the uprising

the first one in Europe

if Cholawski is to be believed

 

it started at your house

next to the shul with the machinegun

fun Ezrat Nashim

 

did you know?

did it make you proud?

I can’t remember you mentioning it

I have to think you didn’t know

 

did you know that your people deported and shot the iniquitous

before they were killed?

 

Maybe our communist cousins knew?

There is only one surviving, I’ll have to ask

 

But years later, years before this year

Four years before you died

I came to know you

 

Twisted, gnarled from the years

of poverty

of dragging a half-dead husband

and two boys

through the Great Depression

always one step ahead of the landlord

refusing to give up your status as a boss

of a shitty little candy store

that always went under

 

even when the rebbe offered to clout you into an ILGWU shop

you were too proud, too vain, too stupid

the daughter of a furrier

in a prosperous little town

owned by the Radziwills

your older sister, The rich lady of Nesvizh

 

The death of your family back home

The death of your civilization back home

 

I knew you

leyenung di Forverts

You and your language not much longer

died 1983

I was a youth

 

You were twisted by the slow death of your husband, your poverty, the endless days and nights of work and worry

the genocide

the end of your family

the end of your civilization

your life ended at 51

what more was there to live for?

 

by 83 you were crazy, twisted, gnarled

like an old tree

It did not seem you understood what came after

Could anyone?

 

you were full of hate

even towards those close to you

I used to dread coming home

to have to listen to you

 

But now

knowing that the rebellions started from your house

knowing that the comrades renamed your street for the First of May

and the cross-street for Comrade Liebknecht, the German martyr

to our cause

brings me a sort of happiness

 

Lenin stands around the corner

The marq empty now

 

Would you be happy if you knew?

Would Dad?