Meeting with Alexander Tamir — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

Alexander Tamir (Wolkoviski) was born in Vilna, Poland (today in Lithuania) in 1931 and passed away in Israel in August, 2019. He was an only child to Fania Kovarski and Dr. Noah (Leon) Wolkoviski. Tamir went to a Jewish school where he studied in Polish and the first songs he heard were in Polish. He learnt to play the piano from the age of 5 and started composing and writing music when still a child.

Following the Soviet Union's occupation of eastern Poland in September, 1939 and the annexation of Vilna to Lithuania, the family fled to Belarus. They lived in Minsk for a short time and then moved to a small town nearby. Tamir continued learning the piano and was even sent to Moscow to participate in a talent show. He learnt Russian and joined the Communist youth movement.

In June, 1940 the Soviet Union annexed Vilna and all of Lithuania so Tamir and his parents returned to Vilna. After the German invasion and occupation of Vilna, the family was incarcerated in the ghetto. His father was a member of a cultural club with Abba Kovner and Avraham Sutzkever and they spent many hours talking in the family's apartment in the ghetto. His father wrote a poem about Ponary to which Shmerke Kaczerginski added a few stanzas and translated into Yiddish; 11-year old Alexander composed the lyrics. In April, 1943 Tamir won a competition for lyrics that was held in the Vilna Ghetto for the lyrics of Ponar.  He learnt French in the ghetto, which came in handy after the war, when he went to France.

 In 1943-44, a few months after the competition, there was a selection in the ghetto.  Tamir was deported by train to a work camp at Kiviõli in Estonia, where his father worked as the camp doctor. As the Soviets approached, the camp was liquidated and there was another selection among the prisoners. Tamir was separated from his father. "Only later did we understand that they had, in fact, been executed," Tamir said.

Tamir was transferred to the labor camp at Stutthof where he met up with his uncle and a few friends from the ghetto. There he also survived a number of selections. He would be chosen in a selection to be moved to the children's hut but he would run away to the barrack of the adults who had come from Vilna. He polished the boots of the Wermacht soldiers who were at the camp and ate scraps of food that he found; he would also bring scraps after work to give to the other prisoners. His uncle perished at Stutthof. He was transferred from Stutthof to the Dautmergen-Schoemberg labor camp and in April 1945, he was liberated near Stuttgart by the French army and sent to Paris. A few months later, he immigrated to Israel, found his family in Israel and was joined up with his mother who had survived the Holocaust. He was recruited for the War of Independence as a boy born in 1931, but was later released because of his age, like most of his peers.

In the early 50's he moved to Jerusalem and enrolled at the Rubin Musical Academy. There he met the pianist Bracha Eden and, in 1955, they set up a pianist duo which performed for fifty years, won competitions and prizes and appeared in many halls around the world.

In 1968 Tamir and Eden established the Music Center in Ein Karem which offers classical music concerts and recitals to the public. His performances were chosen by Igor Stravinski, the composer, to be broadcast on the BBC and they were also widely recorded.

"The greatest source of satisfaction for me is to go to Germany as an Israeli pianist."

Taken from Yad Vashem 

Photo: Judith Garinkol

In April, 2013 members of the Association finally met with the pianist, Professor Alexander Tamir, at Bet Vilna: they had been asking him to come and talk to them for quite some time about his childhood memories of the Vilna Ghetto. A few years ago it came to our attention that Professor Alexander Tamir was the child who won the music competition in the Vilna Ghetto for composing the lyrics to Ponar, the song that is sung at almost every ceremony, sheket sheket beni naharisha (quietly, quietly, my son, we will be silent).

For years he denied that he had written the lyrics. In Israel he did not speak of it for a long time and he really does not remember very much about the ghetto. However, the conversation started to flow when he met up with other people who had been in the ghetto.

Written: Judith Garin-kol