I never wallow in self pity for long, not when music like this exists, with stories like these: https://youtu.be/B7ifo6R5Fjk
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...