"Oyfn Pripetshik" (, also spelled "Oyfn Pripetchik", "Oyfn Pripetchek", etc.; ) is a Yiddish song by M.M. Warshawsky (1848âÂÂ1907). The song is about a melamed teaching his young students the Hebrew alphabet. By the end of the 19th century it was one of the most popular songs of the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, and as such it is a major musical memory of pre-Holocaust Europe.
The fourth stanza introduces tragic pathos into the song: "When, children, you will grow older / You will understand / How many tears lie in these letters / And how much crying." The lyrics hint at the traditional Yiddish saying that "The history of the Jews is written in tears".
At the Kovno Ghetto, poet Avrom Akselrod wrote the song with the melody of "Oyf'n Pripetshik" known under the titles "Baym geto toyerl" ("At the ghetto gate", the first line) and "Fun der arbet" ("Back from work"). The song is about smuggling (food, firewood, money) into the ghetto. Ghetto survival depended on this smuggling. It was published in Lider fun di Getos un Lagern by Shmerke Kaczerginski, 1948. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem collections have a 1946 recording of the song by an unknown person at the Bavarian displaced persons camp.
The first 3 lines in Yiddish:
The first stanza:
It is also available on the audio CD Ghetto Tango: Wartime Yiddish Theater, track 10, "Fun Der Arbet", sung by Adrienne Cooper, with piano and arrangement by Zalmen Mlotek.
The song has been featured on soundtracks including: