Savta Sima Skurkovitz
Savta-Sima Skurkovitz/Written by Yoed Sorek
Sitting on a small plastic stool in a simple kitchen , eating from a hard plastic plate with a Mickey Mouse print, that my father probably ate from as a child, I spent hors and hours with Sima, my grandmother. I inhaled the stories, the songs, the loe of Vilna, of Yiddish, of Jerusalem. There was a specific shine in her eyes that mesmerized so many. In these magical hours this project was born. Sima's songs, "yiddishkayt fun eyninkel gezungn", my future repertoire, the program and Yiddish recording.
Savta Sima, my grandmother and I were both born in Jerusalem. The one, a wall at it's heart is tired and wounded after thousand years of fighting. The other one my grandmother's birthplace is Jerusalem de Lita., the city of Vilna in Lithuania. Vilna, beautiful Vilna, with its flourishing Jewish culture and religious life, a life loved and cherished so much even though it was far from the holy city. The wonderful song "Vilne, Vilne" expresses the love of life in this beautiful city.
Thursday morning, June 24th, 1941: flowers were thrown at the proud, handsome German soldiers marching with a smile into Vilna. The nightmare had begun. It didn't take long till my grandmother found herself in prison. She found her way out. She was lucky, many times, saved by her beauty, her "Khutspe", and her strength but mainly through her songs-Sima's songs. The songs were her possessions when everything else was taken from her, her family, her dignity, her hair and her health. Her songs saved her "Neshume"-her soul, her spirit and her love of life. This treasure they could not take, and in the end, she won.
Unfortunately, her Jerusalem, Jerusalem de Lita, is gone and will never come back. The Germans were extremely successful in wiping out this culture.
Many years later, there in the simple kitchen of a woman who saw no sense in holding "beautiful" precious objects, a pragmatic woman, hundreds of visitors from around the world sat down to learn about her stories and poems. They heard her message. She wanted to distribute and preserve the Yiddish cultural treasure. She wrote her autobiography, lectured to groups in Yad Vashem and Europe, in front of the German Wehrmacht soldiers in Hamburg, to let them all know, remember and learn the lesson. She said there was no hate in her heart.
When I asked her if she objected to my moving to Germany, she said: "You are third generation, they are now third generation, what is their connection to all this? It is not their fault. Sing in Yiddish. They will love it. Tell about your Savta Sima". Recent research shows that mental trauma goes through four generations. From 1939 to 1945, the whole world was traumatized. So the road goes a long way I feel it in my performances in Europe. A third generation of Holocaust survivors, I live now, 75 years later, in Germany. I speak German, I have good friends here, feel free. Sure. This leads me to the conclusion: Peace is possible! I believe in the power of music to connect people. The stranger will become a friend and heal the wounds.
I hope music touches your heart, and I hope to spread Sima's message: Remember, Learn, Love
Shalom!!
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