{"id":97961,"date":"2021-05-23T14:48:19","date_gmt":"2021-05-23T11:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/?p=97961"},"modified":"2024-03-20T08:58:56","modified_gmt":"2024-03-20T06:58:56","slug":"lbh-freilich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/en\/lbh-freilich\/","title":{"rendered":"These Rediscovered Melodies Survived the Holocaust. Now They&#8217;re Online"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">My father Yitzchak Freilich\u2019s stories of survival during the Holocaust were laced with liturgical references. In recounting his first <em>Shabbes<\/em> (Sabbath) as a prisoner in the Pustkow camp in southeastern Poland early in the war \u2013 forced for the first time to violate the Sabbath by performing hard labor \u2013 he returned to his barracks exhausted and despondent and fell into a deep sleep.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Dreaming that he was at home with his family for <em>Seudah Shlishit<\/em>, the afternoon Sabbath meal, he woke himself up singing <em>zmirot<\/em>, songs traditionally sung around the table.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">His long and harrowing tale ended on a similar note: five camps and years later, as his Russian liberators approached Theresienstadt, my father and some of the other prisoners spontaneously burst out singing &#8220;<em>Avinu Malkeinu<\/em>&#8220;, the hallowed prayer of the High Holidays. By then, he was the only survivor of his immediate family.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This sort of musical bracketing of his wartime experiences is not surprising given my father\u2019s upbringing. The fourth of five children born to a Hasidic family in 1922 in Radomyszl Wielki, a tiny Polish shtetl, his father, Asher Freilich, was a traveling <em>Ba\u2019al T\u2019filah, <\/em>an itinerant prayer leader.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_98069\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-98069\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-98069\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Asher-Freilich-authors-grandfather.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"667\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Asher-Freilich-authors-grandfather.jpg 500w, https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Asher-Freilich-authors-grandfather-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Asher-Freilich-authors-grandfather-450x600.jpg 450w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-98069\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Asher Freilich (Courtesy: Toby Perl Freilich)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">My grandfather\u2019s route was guided by a quest for Hasidic <em>davening<\/em> (prayer) that dug deep into his soul, and he was frequently accompanied by my father and my uncle Naftuli, my father\u2019s older brother. Occasionally my grandfather or others in the shtetl hosted visiting Hasidic dignitaries, such as the Dembitzer or Zabner rebbes, who might leave behind a little known but striking tune, known as a &#8220;<em>niggun<\/em>&#8221; (pl. &#8220;<em>niggunim<\/em>&#8220;), that was then incorporated into the family\u2019s repertoire.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The rituals of <em>Shabbes<\/em> and holidays and the lively Hasidic <em>niggunim<\/em> as well as their soulful prayer marked the happiest and deepest memories of my father\u2019s prewar life. The household was poor, but my father\u2019s memories were invariably warm, loving and inextricably linked to the music he had heard at home when his family had been intact.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In the late 1990s, with my father\u2019s health failing and his depression deepening, my brother, Mel Freilich, had the brilliant inspiration to sit my father down over the course of a number of <em>Shabbes<\/em> and holiday eves to videotape him singing the <em>t\u2019fillot<\/em> (prayers), <em>piyyutim<\/em> (liturgical poems), <em>zmirot<\/em>, and other songs that had formed the soundtrack of his childhood.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_98063\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-98063\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-98063\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Freilich-Family-Prewar-Yitzchak-Freilich-lower-left-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"594\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Freilich-Family-Prewar-Yitzchak-Freilich-lower-left-1.jpg 500w, https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Freilich-Family-Prewar-Yitzchak-Freilich-lower-left-1-253x300.jpg 253w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-98063\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Yitzchak Freilich (lower left) and his family before the war (Courtesy: Toby Perl Freilich)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Mel also asked him to recall the rituals surrounding the holidays and the origin of the <em>niggunim<\/em>, insisting that my father speak in Yiddish \u2013 an astute directorial prompt, as it allowed my father to vividly channel his boyhood memories including the folkways of the town\u2019s Jews.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">On Fridays, his mother prepared a lunch of farfel and <em>tzikker arbis<\/em> (lima beans), a modest meal to ensure that they came to the main meal that night with a keen appetite. On Purim, the matzos were baked in a communal oven and hung from the attic rafters until Pesach to keep the mice at bay.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">On the morning of Lag Ba\u2019Omer, the rebbe of the <em>kheder<\/em> (children&#8217;s religious school) took them to the woods; they carried hard-boiled eggs and bagels and crude bows and arrows (&#8220;<em>a feil und boigen<\/em>&#8220;), made of two sticks and a string. They would merrily shoot into the air, vaguely in the direction of the birds so that it was never a surprise when they failed to capture any quarry. He recounts the precise order of <em>t\u2019fillot<\/em> and <em>niggunim<\/em> on Friday night: what was recited after the fish; which <em>zmirot <\/em>were sung at <em>Seudah Shlishit<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">My father passed away in 2002, and only my brother \u2013 the keeper of the family\u2019s flame \u2013 watched the videos in toto, my sister and I not having the heart.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_98138\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-98138\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-98138\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Mel-Freilich-head-shot.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"667\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Mel-Freilich-head-shot.jpg 500w, https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Mel-Freilich-head-shot-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Mel-Freilich-head-shot-450x600.jpg 450w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-98138\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mel Freilich, keeper of the family\u2019s flame (Courtesy: Mel Freilich)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A few years ago, my sister\u2019s husband died and suddenly the mortality of our generation became all too real, as was the anxiety that these memories would pass along with us if we didn\u2019t ensure their preservation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I became an Israeli citizen a couple of months ago, joining my sister, who made <em>Aliyah<\/em> in 1968 and lives on Kibbutz Tirat Tzvi. My parents are buried on the kibbutz, and most of their grandchildren and great-grandchildren either live in Israel or think of it as a second home, so it made sense for our father\u2019s tapes to find a home here as well. I reached out to my friend, Naomi Schacter, who heads International Relations at the National Library of Israel, and she put me in touch with Dr. Gila Flam, the Head of the Music and Sound Archives, Collections and Reading Room, who welcomed our precious legacy to the NLI\u2019s ethnographic collection.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The videos are now preserved and available online for all to see.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_98047\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-98047\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nli.org.il\/en\/items\/NNL_MUSIC_AL997009706362805171\/NLI\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-98047\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Clips-1-and-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"374\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Clips-1-and-2.jpg 739w, https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Clips-1-and-2-300x224.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-98047\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nli.org.il\/en\/items\/NNL_MUSIC_AL997009706362805171\/NLI\">Click to view two clips of Yitzchak Freilich singing various songs and niggunim, including some traditionally sung on Purim, Passover and the High Holidays, now part of the National Library of Israel collection<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_98044\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-98044\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nli.org.il\/en\/items\/NNL_MUSIC_AL997009706353105171\/NLI?volumeItem=2\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-98044\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Clips-3-and-4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"411\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Clips-3-and-4.jpg 675w, https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Clips-3-and-4-300x247.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-98044\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nli.org.il\/en\/items\/NNL_MUSIC_AL997009706353105171\/NLI?volumeItem=2\">Click to view two clips of Yitzchak Freilich singing Shabbes and Shavuos songs from his childhood, now part of the National Library of Israel collection<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Once the videos were online, I began to watch them more assiduously, finding new connections between the origin stories of these <em>niggunim<\/em> and my father\u2019s Holocaust stories. For example, my father sang an outstanding and exceedingly rare rendition of &#8220;<em>Yah Ribon Olam<\/em>&#8220;, the popular table hymn sung on Shabbat. It was not until I listened to my brother\u2019s recording that I heard the source of this <em>niggun<\/em>, which my father attributes to the \u201cMelitzer rebbe,\u201d Reb Yitzchokele Horowitz. \u201cMelitz\u201d rang a bell and I realized it was the Yiddishized reference to the town of Mieli\u0107, where my father had been imprisoned as a slave laborer in the city\u2019s aircraft factory, which had been appropriated by the Nazis and turned into a camp. It was also where he had received his distinctive tattoo \u2013 a large KL on his right wrist, an acronym for <em>Konzentrationslager Lager <\/em>(concentration camp). But when asked, my father would declare that KL stood for \u201c<em>koidesh l\u2019Hashem<\/em>\u201d \u2013 Holy to God.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">My mother, Chana Perl Freilich, also a survivor from a Hasidic shtetl in Poland, punctuates the videos with a few well-timed and powerful cameo appearances. The Yom Kippur eve recording is particularly difficult to watch as my father repeatedly breaks down. Following his third or fourth failed attempt (before finally rallying), my mother comes into frame, kisses him on his head and says in Yiddish, \u201cYou know what? Today is Yom Kippur eve&#8230; And I don\u2019t think you have so much to repent \u2013 you haven\u2019t sinned very much.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_98072\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-98072\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-98072\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Anna-Isak-Freilich-1947-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"717\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Anna-Isak-Freilich-1947-1.jpeg 500w, https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Anna-Isak-Freilich-1947-1-209x300.jpeg 209w, https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Anna-Isak-Freilich-1947-1-418x600.jpeg 418w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-98072\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anna and Yitzchak Freilich, 1947 (Courtesy: Toby Perl Freilich)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Implicit in her comments is the grudge many observant survivors bore toward God for the unwarranted catastrophe visited upon pious Jews. My mother would frequently wave a rhetorical fist at the heavens, saying &#8220;<em>Ikh hub a din v\u2019khesbon mit dem Riboineh Shel Oilem<\/em>&#8221; \u2013 &#8220;I have an accounting with God&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">It was at once an expression of unquestioning faith yet resentment toward God, testifying to a longstanding and weary, yet intimate relationship.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Yom Kippur was a loaded day for my mother as well as my father, a day heavy with memory and fate. There&#8217;s a particularly chilling story related to Yom Kippur and my mother&#8217;s shtetl, Szyd\u0142owiec. The Jews of her ghetto were rounded-up and transported to the camps two days after Yom Kippur, on September 23, 1942. A surviving eyewitness recounts that as they were gathered in the central square before being deported to Treblinka, the rabbi of the shtetl, Chaim Yekusiel Rabinowitz, said, &#8220;<em>Yidden<\/em>, we will not even have anybody left to say <em>Kaddish<\/em> for us, so we are obligated to say <em>Kaddish<\/em> for ourselves.&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_98075\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-98075\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nli.org.il\/en\/images\/NNL_ARCHIVE_AL700492199\/NLI\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-98075 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Szydlowiec.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"353\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Szydlowiec.jpg 500w, https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Szydlowiec-300x212.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-98075\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nli.org.il\/en\/images\/NNL_ARCHIVE_AL700492199\/NLI\">Jewish cemetery in Szyd\u0142owiec (Photo: Jerzy Budziszewski).<\/a> From the Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; available via the National Library of Israel Digital Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">All of the assembled began to wail and chant <em>Kaddish<\/em>, the mourner&#8217;s prayer: &#8220;<em>Yisgadal v\u2019yiskaddash shemei rabba<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A day earlier, my mother along with a married cousin and her husband, Gitele and Yossel Friedenson, had been fortunate to escape to the nearby town of Starachowice, having secured forged work papers for the labor camp. They barely survived the brutal conditions and were transported to Auschwitz on Tisha B\u2019Av, July 30, 1944.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">On the <em>Shabbes<\/em> tape, my father says that it was the custom among the Hasidim in his region<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">to begin the Friday <em>davening<\/em> with a &#8220;<em>kapitl Tehilim<\/em>&#8221; \u2013 &#8220;a little bit of Psalms&#8221;, and he begins to chant the customary Psalm 107, reaching the following words:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love<br \/>\nand his wonderful deeds for mankind,<br \/>\nfor he satisfies the thirsty<br \/>\nand fills the hungry with good things.<br \/>\nSome sat in darkness, in utter darkness,<br \/>\nprisoners suffering in iron chains,<br \/>\nbecause they rebelled against God\u2019s commands<br \/>\nand despised the plans of the Most High.<br \/>\nSo he subjected them to bitter labor;<br \/>\nthey stumbled, and there was no one to help.<br \/>\nThen they cried to the Lord in their trouble,<br \/>\nand he saved them from their distress.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">He finishes midway through the Psalm and says, \u201cYou see, I didn\u2019t want to end on hunger, thirst, and bondage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">And so, I will stop where he chose to end:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>He brought them out of darkness, the utter darkness,<br \/>\nand broke away their chains.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8212;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>This article has been published as part of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/europe.nli.org.il\/\">Gesher L\u2019Europa<\/a>, the National Library of Israel\u2019s initiative to connect with people, institutions and communities across Europe and beyond, through storytelling, knowledge sharing and community engagement.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tunes from his childhood accompanied Yitzchak Freilich through the camps and on to his new life in America. Recorded by his son, they are now online as part of the National Library of Israel collection<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":256,"featured_media":98126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[218],"tags":[649,1601,1802,1218,1673,1640,1715,1951,1868,309],"tags2":[],"class_list":["post-97961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-judaism","tag-gesherleuropa","tag-jewish-immigration","tag-jewish-music","tag-life-before-the-holocaust","tag-music","tag-poland","tag-polish-jewry","tag-purim-eng","tag-the-high-holy-days","tag-theholocaust"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>These Rediscovered Melodies Survived the Holocaust. 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