Videos

This song is based on a poem “Tsu Arbeter Froyen” written by Dovid Edelshtat (1866-1892), published 1891.

Lyrics

In nineteen hundred forty five
Among the Jews who were left alive
There came a visionary man
Who turned his wrath into a plan
Abba Kovner was his name
As a partisan he earned his fame
He was a Vilna rebel Jew
A poet warrior through & through

He met some surviving ghetto fighters
Zionists & socialists conspired
They gathered in a Lublin flat
& round the kitchen table sat

They gave themselves a Hebrew name
& with this word they did proclaim
That vengeance is what God would will,
Were there a Sod, & so they’d kill

Six million Germans…
You might say it was insane
That it was misdirected pain
They didn’t want the war to end
They wanted one thing, Nakam: Revenge

For every Jew the n***s gassed
For every racist law they passed
For every wrong that wasn’t right
For all the dead Nakam would fight

They formed a band of forty strong
To straighten out what had been wrong
They chose to poison water mains
Just as the Jews of old were blamed

In Nuremberg & Hamburg town
Their agents worked the underground
They took up jobs by the riverside
& waited for the poison to arrive

& Kovner went to Tel Aviv
To see what help he could receive
But the Haganah did not agree
To join in his conspiracy

Six million Germans…
You might say it wasn’t right
An eye for an eye leaves all without sight
They didn’t want to make amends
They wanted one thing, Nakam: Revenge

So Abba Kovner headed back
With vials of poison in his sack
Upon an English navy ship
But to his plan the Brits were tipped

They took him into custody
& the poison fell into the sea
Kovner spent a year in jail
& so plan A did not prevail

The rest of the group was dispersed
& all their backup plans were cursed
But an agent in a bakery
Secured some poison from Paris

As soon as the poison bread had risen
He took it to an allied prison
& various reports have said
There were 100’s of SS prisoners dead
Six million Germans…
You might say that it was wrong
But were their actions weak or strong?
& who are we to judge & condemn?
They wanted one thing, Nakam: Revenge

Sc so Nakam was all disbanded
On Palestina’s shore they landed
& Abba Kovner & his crew
Became like many other Jews

They put aside their rage & hate
& worked to build a Jewish state
With Jewish towns Sc Jewish farms,
Jewish guns Sc nuclear arms

Can vengeance put upon a shelf
Be taken out later on someone else?
Well careful how you read this tale.
‘Lest your own prejudice prevail

For look around the world today
& consider the role vengeance plays
‘Cause history has its unpaid debts
& is it better if we forget?

Six million Germans…
You might say it was absurd
But what becomes of a dream deferred?
How could they just start again?
They wanted one thing, Nakam: Revenge