Vox Tablet

A Lullaby for Auschwitz

On a new album, Italian singer Shulamit offers modern interpretations of haunting songs left by women in the Holocaust

May 13, 2015
(Courtesy Charlette Shulamit Ottolenghi)
(Courtesy Charlette Shulamit Ottolenghi)

More than a decade ago, an Italian-born Jerusalem-based singer named Shulamit learned of a collection of songs composed in concentration camps during WWII. Written by a handful of women most of whom perished in the war, the songs nearly possessed her. Shulamit began performing them, and in 2013 started working with trumpet player Frank London, of the Klezmatics, and the Israeli pianist Shai Bachar, to make arrangements and adaptations for an album.

That album, called For You the Sun Will Shine: Songs of Women in the Shoa, is now out.

From her apartment in Jerusalem, Shulamit tells Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry about the individual women who wrote these lyrics, about how she protects herself from being overwhelmed by the songs’ tragic content, and about how she turned, at age 40, from psychotherapy to music.

Vox Tablet is Tablet Magazine’s weekly podcast, hosted by Sara Ivry and produced by Julie Subrin. You can listen to individual episodes here or subscribe on iTunes.

More Vox Tablet
See all
→︎