Sometimes overlooked in discussions of the Holocaust are the conditions of the Gypsies, or Roma, who were subjected to the same attempt at genocide by the Nazi. Over 200,000 Gypsies lost their lives in the Holocaust. This song is the story of a Gypsy father and his nine year old daughter, as they are led towards the ovens in Auschwitz. The lyricist, the poet Ward Kelley, says, “these lyrics came from the saddest poem I ever published, but I thought it important the story of this small family was told. The poem, named the same as the song, was later nominated for the Pushcart award, and became one of my most reprinted poems. Still, I must admit, it’s difficult for me to read or contemplate this story.”
See http://WardKelley.org for more information about this song and artist.
From Ward Kelley:
Thanks for all the comments on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/gnarledbones. I must admit our song about this man and his little daughter moved Don and I greatly, and we were upset for weeks after recording it. We have nine daughters between us; it pained us to imagine ourselves in the Gypsy's powerless situation where he could only confront this travesty with "the smallest act of beauty." To restore some sanity to our lives, we wrote the song "Daughters" where the father saves the daughter. Turned out to be remedial for us.
Still we mull over the human race's desire to totally destroy large groups of perceived "others." History is full of genocidal events, and it's painful to think about how it also happened on our own continent in the past. Think about the Taino in the Caribbean, or giving American Indians in the northeast smallpox infected blankets, or destroying whole villages in the western US.
Across the world, this perverse desire for genocide rages on in our own recent past: Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur. And unluckily it's occurring right now with the Christians in the Middle East.
The Gypsy tells us to lift our child's hand in the smallest act of beauty, and perhaps express the wish how someday we will all learn from this dark history . . . so we can stop repeating it.
Ward Kelley
https://www.facebook.com/authorwardkelley
The Gypsy’s Daughter Enters the Third Reich Lyrics.
(Whitaker/Kelley 2015)
Verse 1
In this heartless dry air, she’s so brave,
her eyes say it’s me she just forgave,
her nose flexes from the arid scent,
they mean to kill us, they won’t relent,
to kill a child, it’s most deprave,
in this heartless dry air, she’s so brave,
Chorus
Nothing I can do,
I know we’re through,
wish I knew
what to do.
Verse 2
God, this dark world, such volumes of hate
her life must be exchanged to equate
this Nazi formula: lives for greed,
I can only hold her hand, a feckless deed,
And on my lungs, a relentless weight
in this dark world, such volumes of hate.
Instrumental
Chorus
Nothing I can do,
I know we’re through,
wish I knew
what to do.
Ending
And so I lift her little finger
with my callused hand,
a humble wave goodbye
to our sinful world,
and I pray this is the proper response
to this horror . . .
to meet it bravely
with the smallest act of beauty.
Chorus
Nothing I can do,
I know we’re through,
wish I knew
what to do.
to meet it bravely
with the smallest act of beauty.
