Recordings of songs and interviews with Holocaust survivors have been discovered in a mislabelled canister in an archive in Ohio. The songs include one that was sung in the cellars of a Krakow ghetto to inspire rebellion against the Nazis.In the summer of 1946, psychologist Dr David Boder interviewed at least 130 Jewish survivors in nine languages in refugee camps in France, Switzerland, Italy and Germany. With a wire recorder and 200 spools of steel wire, Boder preserved some of the first oral histories of concentration camp survivors. He also recorded singing sessions and religious services.A portion of Boders work has been archived at The University of Akrons Drs Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings Center for the History of Psychology since 1967. But it wasnt until a recent project to digitize the recordings got underway that a spool containing the Henonville Songs, performed in Yiddish and German and long thought lost, was discovered in a mislabeled canister.This recording of a song named Undzer shtetl brent (Our Village is Burning) by Mordecai Gebirtig (Poland, ca 1938) is performed in Yiddish by Gita Frank. She provides a unique introduction to Undzer shtetl brent (a mainstay of commemoration ceremonies), stating that the piece had been sung by the composers daughter in the cellars of Krakow ghetto to inspire the people to rebel against the Germans. Frank also varies text in a significant way, altering the songs original refrain from our village is burning to the Jewish people are burning.
