Archive 2

'The sufferings of Jews under the Nazi regime were reflected in their music and musical life. Music offered women and men interned in ghettos and camps a way to express their humanity in inhuman conditions, to escape, revolt and cry for freedom. The act of singing is a human act of artistic performance that creates another world for the singer and the audience,' writes Dr. Gila Flam, Director of the Sound Archives at Israel's National Library. 'Cry, My Heart, Cry,' the second volume of the Fortunoff Video Archive's Songs from Testimonies project, features 13 new songs performed by Zisl Slepovitch Ensemble and Sasha Lurje. These songs were originally sung by survivors Fortunoff Archive testimonies in three languages: Yiddish, Polish and French. The widely diverse compositions presented on the album recreate a multidimensional image of people's lives and the multiple identities they carried.