Yiddish studies professor Anna Shternshis discovered a collection of lost Yiddish songs at the Ukrainian National Library in Kiev while researching a book about Yiddish culture in the Soviet Union during the Holocaust.
The trove of songs — all very fragile, some typed, but most hand-written on paper — were created during the darkest chapter of European Jewish history.
Those lost lyrics, written by Soviet Jews during the Second World War, were set to music by poet-musician Psoy Korolenko and released earlier this year.
The recording, The Lost Songs of World War II, received an enormous amount of international media attention from Canada, the US, Austria and beyond.
Read the Latest Coverage:
- The Devastating Resonances of Yiddish Songs Recovered from the Second World War
The New Yorker | July 27, 2018
Listen to the Music:
Performance Highlights
Photos from Yiddish Glory The lost songs of World War II, Koerner Hall, August 28, 2018.