Mordecai Gebirtig

Mordechai Gebirtig
Yiddish songwriter and poet.

Murdered by the Nazis in Cracow 4 June 1942

Mordecai Gebirtig was born in Kraków (Cracow), Poland on May 4, 1877. He was killed in the Krakow ghetto on June 4, 1942, during the deportation to the Belzec death camp. Gebirtig, a carpenter by trade, became world famous as the poet and composer of a wide array of Yiddish folksongs. His ballads and song-poems were performed by foremost artists of his time, as well as itinerant street singers in the Jewish courtyards of Europe.