Khane Khaytin

Khane Khaytin was a Lithuanian-Jewish songwriter who wrote many popular songs in the Shavli (Siauliai) ghetto. Her compositions include ‘Ikh leb in geto’ (I live in the ghetto), ‘Torf-lid’ (Peat Song), and perhaps her best-known song, ‘A Yidish Kind’ (A Jewish Child). ‘A Yidish Kind’ commemorates the painful choice of a mother to hide her only child with non-Jews outside of the ghetto, so that he might survive the war.  Recognising that concealing his identity represents his only chance to remain alive, she warns her young son that, 'Yiddish words can’t come from you: you are no longer a Jew.' After several difficult years in the ghetto, Khaytin was deported to the Stutthof concentration camp.  She survived the war and moved to New York.

Sources

Katsherginski, S. & Leivick, H. eds., Lider fun di Getos un Lagern, New York: Alveltlekher Yidisher Kultur-Kongres.  

Mlotek, E. & Gottlieb, M. eds., We Are Here: Songs of the Holocaust, New York: Educational Department of the Workmen's Circle.  e Holocaust. New York, Educational Department of the Workmen's Circle.