“Man muß ein Mensch bleiben und muß sich als Mensch benehmen und das darf man nicht vergessen.” “One must remain a human and one must behave like a human and one must not forget this.” –Herbert Zipper
Herbert Zipper was a Holocaust survivor, conductor, composer, and advocate for arts education who was an ideological forefather of the Colburn School. He composed his “Dachau Lied” in September of 1938 with poet Jura Soyfer who wrote the lyrics while interned at the Dachau concentration camp. The song remained at Dachau through oral tradition and spread also to other concentration camps as a song of resistance.
The April 16 performance of “Dachau Lied” marks the world premiere of an arrangement for quartet and voice by cellist and Colburn student Olivia Marckx. It is based on the original sheet music for the work in the Herbert and Trudl Zipper Archives at the Colburn School.
Dachau Lied “Arbeit macht frei.”
I. Stacheldraht mit Tod geladen Ist um unsre Welt gespannt. Drauf ein Himmel ohne Gnaden Sendet Frost und Sonnenbrand. Fern von uns sind alle Freuden, Fern die Heimat, fern die Frau’n Wenn wir stumm zur Arbeit schreiten, Tausende im Morgengrau’n.
CHORUS Doch wir haben die Losung von Dachau gelernt, Und wir wurden stahlhart dabei. Bleib ein Mensch Kamerad, Sei ein Mann Kamerad, Mach ganze Arbeit, pack an, Kamerad, Denn Arbeit macht frei.
II. Vor der Mündung der Gewehre Leben wir bei Tag und Nacht. Leben hier wird uns zur Lehre Schwerer als wir je gedacht. Keiner mehr zählt Tag und Wochen, Mancher schon die Jahre nicht, Und so viele sind zerbrochen Und verloren ihr Gesicht.
CHORUS
III. Heb den Stein und zieh den Wagen, Keine Last sei dir zu schwer. Der du warst in jüngsten Tagen Bist du heut’ schon längst nicht mehr. Stich den Spaten in die Erde, Grab dein Mitleid tief hinein, Und im eignen Schweisse werde Selber du zu Stahl und Stein.
IV. Einst wird die Sirene künden: Auf zum letzten Zählappell! Draussen dann, wo wir uns finden Bist du, Kamerad, zur Stell’. Hell wird uns die Freiheit lachen, Schaffen heisst’s mit grossem Mut. Und die Arbeit, die wir machen Diese Arbeit, die wird gut.
FINAL CHORUS Doch wir haben die Losung von Dachau gelernt, Und wir wurden stahlhart dabei. Bleib ein Mensch Kamerad, Sei ein Mann Kamerad, Mach ganze Arbeit, pack an, Kamerad, Denn Arbeit macht frei.
Bleib ein Mensch Kamerad, Sei ein Mann Kamerad, Mach ganze Arbeit, pack an, Kamerad, Denn Arbeit, denn Arbeit macht frei.
Dachau Song “Work will set you free.”
I. Barbed wire laden with death Is strung around our world. On top of it, merciless heaven Sends frost and burning sun. Far away from us are all joys, Far away is home, far away are the women. When we silently stride to work, Thousands at daybreak.
CHORUS But we have learned the maxim of Dachau, And, thereby, we became hard as steel. Stay a human, comrade. Be a man, comrade. Do a good job, get to it, comrade, For work will set you free.
II. Before the mouth of rifles We live day and night. Living here becomes our lesson, Graver than we had ever thought. No one counts the days and weeks anymore, Some not even the years, And so many are broken, And their visage lost.
III. Lift the stone and pull the cart, No burden is too heavy for you. He, who you were only recently, Today you are nothing like that. Thrust the spade into the earth, Bury your sympathy deep within, And, in your own sweat, become You yourself of steel and stone.
IV. Someday the siren will announce: Get up for the last roll call! Outside, then, where we find ourselves, There you are, comrade, on the spot. Brightly, freedom will smile at us, Get to work, it says, with great courage. And the work we do, This work, it will be good.
FINAL CHORUS But we have learned the maxim of Dachau, And, thereby, we became hard as steel. Stay a human, comrade. Be a man, comrade. Do a good job, get to it, comrade, For work will set you free.
Stay a human, comrade. Be a man, comrade. Do a good job, get to it, comrade, For work, for work will set you free.
This song offers a darkly ironic reappropriation of the national-socialist maxim, “Arbeit macht frei” (work will set you free) that was displayed at many ghettos and concentration camps. The song makes use of the aesthetic model of the sublime, theorized most prominently in the English-speaking world by Edmund Burke and in the German-speaking world by Friedrich Schiller and Immanuel Kant. Schiller in particular, who has been historically celebrated as a “poet of freedom,” stressed the liberating potential of the sublime; according to his theory, the sublime is a feeling that one perceives upon observing the victory of rationality (or ‘spirit’) over physical limitations, made most obvious in the face of physical coercion. The feeling is a mixture of pleasure and pain: pain because one feels agitated at the thought or sight of physical violence, pleasure at the realization that even in a moment of complete physical overwhelm, the human individual has the capacity to remain intellectually independent. For Schiller, this capacity is what makes the human distinct from all other beings, and his treatment of the sublime is likely what Soyfer and Zipper refer to in their appeals, “Bleib ein Mensch” (Stay a human) and “Sei ein Mann” (Be a man). The poem’s verses are metrically identical to Friedrich Schiller’s freedom poem, “An die Freude” (Ode to Joy), made most famous by its setting by Ludwig van Beethoven in the choral fourth movement of his Symphony No. 9.