Thank you so much for your help. #LearningTheLessons
This song relates to two stories which became intertwined in October 2014. It is being released as a single to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz/Birkenau on January 27th 1945 and to raise funds for the Holocaust Education Trust. All proceeds go to the charity.
The writer, Ali Hain, was part of a group from Queen Alexandria 6th Form College in North Shields who joined students from across the North East of England on a day visit to the death camp organised by HET. In one of the huts there is a huge pile of discarded suitcases which belonged to the victims. Klara Goldstein’s name is prominent on one of the suitcases.
How old was Klara? Where did she come from? What did she dream of? Did she live or die in the death camp? These are the questions asked by Ali on a wet October day as the rain fell relentlessly. In order to make sense of the enormity of what happened in that place he felt compelled to write the song.
In another hut, a quotation by philosopher, George Santayana, is prominent: “The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again”. As the number of survivors who can tell their tale first-hand dwindles, the work of HET to educate future generations about the Holocaust becomes ever more relevant. The song ends by reflecting sadly that history has repeated itself throughout the 20th century and into the 21st.
As an historical footnote, subsequent research shows that Klara (24), from Vienna, died in Birkenau sometime after October 9th 1944 just a few short weeks before the death camp’s liberation by the advancing Allied Forces.
lyrics
Were you a girl when you stepped down upon that sorting ramp?
Which way did fate’s cruel finger point that day?
Bewildered, soiled,
You are despised by those who herded you
To living death or dying death.
Arbeit Macht Frei - but only if you’re dead.
And the rain fell
And the rain fell
And the rain fell all around
But no amount of falling rain
Could wash the darkness from that ground
Your suitcase lies abandoned on a hill of countless more
Names printed neatly out with desperate hope
Klara Goldstein
What thought you when you marked your name upon that lid?
What ghetto dreams regaled your mind distracting you from life?
You may have lived, or not, but most are dead.
And the rain fell
And the rain fell
And the rain fell all around
But no amount of falling rain
Could wash the darkness from that ground
When we don’t remember what has gone before
We are condemned to live it all again
In ignorance with hearts of stone
North Korea and Cambodia, Siberia, Tibet,
Yugoslavia, Rwanda, the Marsh Arabs in Iraq
The wretched irony of Gaza and on and ever on.
Peace still a distant dream, so many dead.
And the rain falls
And the rain falls
All around the rain still falls
What amount of falling rain
Can wash the darkness from our world?
credits
released January 27, 2015
Ali Hain: Lyrics, acoustic guitar, vocals
Mike Smith: Acoustic guitar
Andi Anderson: Production & mastering.
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