Echoes (Four Women)
“Shadows of time / shadows of space / we echo in time / we echo in place”
Echoes (Four Women) pays homage to the spirit of four holocaust survivors - Emmie Arbel, Selma van de Perre, Judit Varga, and Batsheva Dagan - all who were imprisoned at Ravensbrück concentration camp. The song features vocals from the GRAMMY winner Tommy Soulati Shepherd of the Alphabet Rockers, with music by composer Ken Primo aka Keith Pinto.INTRO
The shadows of time
The shadows of space
We echoes in time
We echo in place
VERSE ONE
Four Women
Came to me inside my dreams
My heart stops at the spot where they came to me
Walking arm in arm
Whispering inside my ear
A future messenger of hope
It’s my greatest fear
That voices lost generations
In a fog
It’s undeniable
That memory and truth is unreliable
But there are narratives and stories that are still untold
As you trust in me
You're letting me
Carry your soul
And what I do not know
Humbly I bow my head in reverence
And ask you for your blessing in the present tense
CHORUS
Four Women
Echoing like Aunt Sara
Similar struggle different color different era
VERSE TWO
Batsheva
I call you Isabella in my heart.
You know you lit a spark
Right from the start
I play my part and find the art in your chosen name
I see you with the name at birth
I know it's not the same
It’s the middle name I gave to my daughter
as a father
your survival’s living in her body too.
Emmie Emmie
Let me say the same of you
The troublemaker into mischief keeps on shining through
With a rebel yell you come back to earth
Shy and reserved comfortable in silence you don't need the words
You're a piece of abstract art, we can feel it
Touching us with sunshine from the garden of a healer
So many time with words as signs
Emotional concealers
I try to find the perfect way to express my inner demons
Wake up from this timeline as if we’re dreaming
I hide behind these petty rhymes just to hide my feelings
Selma seldom am I in a place without the words
My impulse is a noun but I fight to live the action verb
That’s how you live your life
Young and girlish in outside
Strong and powerful
All the time
and with those sparkling eyes
You’re so colorful
Filled with wonder
self esteem from public speaking to eating ice cream
Judit you know you’re so curious and interesting
Our conversation wasn’t long but it was medicine
I see you through the lens of generations in my pen
I cannot wait until the time until we meet again
CHORUS
Four Women
Echoing like Aunt Sara
Similar struggle different color different era
“Batsheva / I call you Isabella in my heart / You lit a spark / Right from the start”
Meet Batsheva Dagan.
Poet. Educator. Mother. Grandmother.
Born Isabella Rubinstein in 1925 in Lodz, Poland.
Speaker of many languages.
When the war broke out her four older brothers and her oldest sister fled to the USSR.
She moved with her family to Radom, to the area known as the “Great Ghetto”. Using “Arian” documents she was able to sneak into the Warsaw ghetto and bring back the underground newspaper “Against The Flow” to Radom. After her parents were sent to Treblinka, she decided to flee to Germany and when she arrived in Schwerin, she used false documents to work as a maid for a Nazi family. When she was discovered she was moved from prison to prison. In May 1943 she was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. In January 1945 she was sent on a death march to Ravensbrück and Malchow. In May 1945 she was liberated by the Allies and went to Belgium, where she met her husband, before moving to Israel. Source: Ravensbrück concentration camp memorial site
“Emmie Emmie / Let me say the same of you / The troublemaker into mischief keeps on shining through”
Meet Emmie Arbel.
Rebel. Activist. Mother. Grandmother.
Born Emmie Kallus in 1937 in The Hague, Holland.
Quiet observer with a huge heart.
Emmie is the youngest of three children including her brothers Rudi and Menachem. They are not practicing Jews but they do get sent to synagogue for religious education. In May 1940 the Netherlands were occupied by the Germans. In 1942, the entire family was arrested in their flat and deported to the Dutch Jewish Transit Camp [German Original: Judendurchgangslager] Westerbork. The father is soon separated from the family and deported to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp, where he later dies.
In 1944, Emmie and the rest of her family are deported to the Ravensbrück Women's Concentration Camp. During the day, the children are left on their own, while their mothers have to work. Menachem is soon separated from them - Emmie, Rudi and her mother are deported to Bergen- Belsen Concentration Camp on 1 March 1945. One week after the liberation, Emmie's mother dies of exhaustion in her presence. Together with Rudi, Emmie is brought to Sweden to recover. Back in the Netherlands, they reunite with Menachem and are taken in by a Jewish family.
In 1948, Emmie immigrated to Israel with her foster parents and siblings. She suffers from the consequences of the war and has great learning and adaptation difficulties. Nevertheless, she starts a family and has three daughters. Today she volunteers to support the children of Palestinian families from the West Bank.
Source: Loretta-Walz-Archive: Die Frauen von Ravensbrück. Das Videoarchiv, translated by Imogen Wilkins.
“Judit you know you’re so curious and interesting / Our conversation wasn’t long but it was medicine”
Meet Judit Varga.
Doctor of Law. Storyteller. Mother. Grandmother.
Born Judit Hoffman in 1927 in Hungary.
Incredible memory and narrative skills.
In spring 1944, the German Wehrmacht occupied Hungary. The Hungarian Jews had been relatively safe up to then. But suddenly things started to change quickly. At the end of April, Judit and her family were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. There, she saw her father János and her brother Sándor for the last time. For eight months, the then 17- year-old had to perform heaviest labor for the Deutsche Gasrußwerke (DGW). When the Russian Army neared in January 1945, she was "evacuated" to the West by the SS.
After her arrival at Ravensbrück Concentration camp, Judit met her mother again, who had been "evacuated" to Ravensbrück from Auschwitz. Two weeks later, both were transferred to the satellite camp Retzow-Rechlin. When her mother was dying, she told Judit where her father's diaries, which he had kept for his children, were hidden. In January 2001 she published her father’s diary under the title Ködkárpit (Shroud of Mist). Source: Ravensbrück concentration camp memorial site.
“Selma seldom am I in a place without the words / My impulse is a noun but I fight to live the action verb”
Meet Selma van de Perre.
Resistance Fighter. Journalist. Teacher. Daily Show Star.
Born Selma Velleman in 1922 in the Netherlands.
Powerful superstar with a story to tell.
In 1942, Selma decided to go undercover. She moved to Leiden, where she found refuge in the house of a friend who worked as a doctor and often invited other doctors to her house for meetings. Selma noticed the meetings, but it took her a while to find out that the doctors formed a resistance group. The resistance group focused on helping Jewish families go into hiding. Selma was impressed by these activities and decided to become a member of the group.
In 1943, during a meeting with allies of the resistance, Selma was arrested. She managed, however, to hide her real identity. From Amsterdam she was then sent to Vught Concentration Camp. In September 1944, she was deported to Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. On April 23rd, 1945, after eight months of constant fear and hard forced labor, she was liberated by the Swedish Red Cross and brought to Denmark. Eventually, the Ministry of War made her move to London and work for medical services there. Through a friend, she joined BBC radio, where she worked for eight years and met her future husband.
Source: URL: http://www.projekt-ravensbrueck.de/.../selma-van-de-perre..., translated by Imogen Wilkins..
Source: Ravensbrück concentration camp memorial site