The Song of Songs -Against Forgetting

The Agropolis, early morning hours.

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I fought with the Greek Gods in school and learned the old Greek language -not by choice but by force at first. As children, we all tried to understand “The Odyssey” an epic poem that we had to read, but understood years later. My love for Greece and its people came naturally afterward when I finally started to understand the old philosophers.

My second vacation, one of the few I actually paid for myself before my travels as a translator began, was to Greece. I wanted to walk where history had led me in my studies. I needed to see the Oracle of Delphi with my own eyes and I wanted to look at the 3,300-year-old ruins of the Acropolis in Athens from far -and near.

To this day I have a soft spot for the country, its people, and its traditions and I enjoy the music. While modern Greek and ancient Greek are as different as night and day, which means I am as lost for words as most tourists are, and I depend on English to find my way around these days, I still can’t help and listen to Greek music and not just Anthony Quinn in “Zorba the Greek” dancing the Sirtaki, but also the classic and modern music.

Άσμα ασμάτων (Asma Asmaton-Song of Songs) from the album “The Ballad of Mauthausen” -music composed by Mikis Theodorakis, and sung by Maria Farantouri goes deep, into a part of the world’s history that should never be forgotten.

I want to remember and I hope all future generations will as well. We should never forget how beautiful they were. The beauty of the girls that were transported to Auschwitz, Dachau, and many other concentration camps, including the Austrian camp Mauthausen, up on the hills.

While it’s a tough subject, the performance is stunning and beautiful. I could feel the emotions, the depth, and the love and I hope the ones who will take their time to watch the clip, will feel the same.

You don’t have to speak or understand Greek to enjoy this

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Song Lyric Weekend

The Ballad of Mauthausen includes, with no fear of exaggeration, not only some of the most famous and touching songs in the Greek language but also those dedicated to the extermination camps in any language.

In dedication to my Austrian grandfather, Paul (1898-1963)
who was twice a political prisoner in Auschwitz.

He died five months before I was born.

Maria Farantouri is an artist who communicates with her audiences without any “filters” whatsoever. She sings completely naturally and undiluted with all its raw force and energy so that it reaches your heart and soul.

Mauthausen was a German camp in Austria during WW2 where the Nazis forced their victims to work in a stone quarry and haul big pieces of stone up a steep and very uneven ramp. Although not an extermination camp like Auschwitz, countless people still were robbed of their lives in ways and under circumstances too horrific to imagine.

The ballad of Mauthausen is based on the experiences of the Greek/Jewish playwright Iakovos Kambanellis. He wrote four poems that Theodorakis put into music. His inspiration was a photo of an unknown girl that he found in the camp and which he kept with him.

The song we just listened to deals with the poignant question of a man who describes how beautiful his beloved is, and he asks the other inmates if they have seen her. The answer being, “We have seen her on a long march, standing on a large square with a number on her arm and a yellow star on her heart.”

The repeated line No one knows how beautiful my beloved was is hauntingly sung by Maria Farantouri.

If you have never listened to the album “The Ballade of Mauthausen” you might want to put it on your to-do list for rainy days. It is worth it, take my word for it. It is poetry and music coming together in a glorious whole that becomes a warning for humanity.