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     7 years ago 

    I never wallow in self pity for long, not when music like this exists, with stories like these:


    elysianfields49 commented:

    Herman Yablokoff (Der Poyatz) was a luminary in the Yiddish theatre, and the author
    of this haunting, depressing melody. It was the story of a tortured little boy in Europe
    who had to sell cigarettes (individually) from a basket on the streets, to help his
    impoverished family keep body and soul together. His father lost both hands in the
    war; his mother had gone mad from the unalloyed misery of their lives; and his sickly
    little sister (the only friend he had, and who used to help him sell the cigarettes) died
    on a park bench, presumably of accompanying starvation. The little boy (who was
    subjected to beatings by the police, and felt that he, too, would die like a dog) wailed
    to Heaven that "why doesn't death claim me also?" I may safely say that this is one of the most sorrowful, harrowing songs of all time -made only more so by the fact that there were so many poor children who were thrust
    into lives of utter despair by the vicissitudes of cruel Fate...

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