Papirosn

"Papirosn" (Yiddish: פּאַפּיראָסן‎, transl. Cigarettes) is a Yiddish song that was written in the 1920s.[1] The song tells the story of a Jewish boy who sells cigarettes to survive on the streets. He depicts his tragic fate; having lost his parents, his younger sister has died on the bench,[2] and eventually he loses his own hope.[3]

External video
"Papirosn" by Dudu Fisher, YouTube video

The song's author Herman Yablokoff was a member of the Yiddish theater that was active in Lithuania and Poland in the years following World War I. He was inspired by children who tried to make a living selling cigarettes in the streets.[2] The sight of the children reminded him of his childhood in World War I in Grodno, where he tried selling cigarettes to passers-by.[2]

Yablokoff went to the United States in 1924; the song was published in an American radio program in Yiddish in 1932 and became a hit as part of a musical of the same name that premiered in 1935. Many music sheets of the song were sold.[4] A silent movie in which Sidney Lumet played the Jewish boy was made.[5]

"Papirosn" was later amended to mirror the tribulations of the Holocaust in the ghettos of Poland and Lithuania.[1] The song was used as a base for many Holocaust songs in the Lodz and Vilna Ghettos, among others.[6] Shmerke Kaczerginski found two alternate versions of the song, both of which share the tune of the original but have different stories:[7] One version was written by Yankele Hershkowitz, a famous street singer from the Lodz Ghetto; it follows the story of the original song but tells a story about ration coupons in the Ghetto.[3] The other version, written by Jewish poet Rilke Glezer,[8] describes the Ponary massacre. An additional version from the Warsaw Ghetto makes a direct allusion to the original but the boy sells ghetto black bread instead of cigarettes.[3] There have been other versions of the song, including non-Yiddish versions.[3]

The song was not officially prohibited in the Soviet Union but it was usually played at private events—it was seldom allowed to be played in public because it was argued that the lyrics were not about Soviet Jews.[2]