It Burns (translation of Es Brennt)

"It burns, brothers, look! It burns! Our little shtetl screaming as it burns
Winds of death like wolves come howling
Breaking, pulling and devouring,
The smoke that chokes our lungs is scouring 
And our shtetl burns

Chorus:
And you stand and cross your arms 
Or with you backs turned
And you stand and cross your arms 
While our shtetl burns

"It burns, sisters, look! It burns!
And over us the flaming pillar churns
Tar-paper and creosote,  Gulped into its hungry throat, 
The winds laugh and the soldiers gloat
And our shtetl burns

Chorus

"It burns, mothers, look! It burns
As one by one each shtetl has its turn
God forbid, the time may come
Our village and ourselves as one
Will by these flames be turned to ash
Like trenches shelled, the walls burned black

Chorus

It burns, fathers, look it burns. 
Now watch the fires spreading out, and learn 
Unless we want to die in shame Let’s take a bucket, fight the flame 
If not with water, soon, a flood
Will quench the world in our blood

Don’t just stand and cross your arms
Or with your backs turned
Don’t just stand and cross your arms 
And watch our people burn

Es Brennt was written by Mordecai Gebertig, a Jewish socialist, songwriter, and furniture maker. He wrote the song in response to pogroms targeting Jews in Poland in the years before World War Two. He was murdered in the Krakow Ghetto by the Nazis as he and other elderly Jewish prisoners were executed by gunfire as the German occupiers forced Jews onto the trains to the Belzec death camp. 

In addition to his haunting premonitions of the spreading fires of fascism and antisemitism in Europe, Mordecai Gebertig's work covers a vast range, from humorous to tragic, songs of worker resistance, life in poverty, children's play songs, love, and more. He lives on through his work, which the fascists and their bullets could never bury.