A poignant song

In The Third Reich at War: How the Nazis Led Germany From Conquest to Disaster the concluding volume of Richard Evans masterly trilogy on the Nazi regime (it, however, stands on its own and I strongly recommend you get it) there are the words of a very moving and haunting song by Ilse Weber:

Farewell, my friend, we have come to the end
Of the journey we took together.
They've found me a place on the Polish express,
And now I must leave you for ever.
You were loyal and true, you helped me get through,
You stood by my side in all weather,
Just feeling you near would quiet every fear,
We bore all our burdens together.
Farewell, it's the end; I'll miss you my friend,
And the hours we spent together.
I gave you my heart, stay strong when we part,
For this time our farewell's for ever

Writing of Jewish composers imprisoned in Theresienstadt, Richard Evans says:

"Some of the most moving of these compositions were by Ilse Weber, who wrote both music and lyrics and sang them, accompanying herself on a guitar, as she did her night rounds in the children's ward of the camp hospital, carrying out her duties as a nurse. Born in 1903, Weber had worked as a writer and radio producer in Prague before her deportation in 1942. Her husband and younger son were in the camp with her; they had succeeded in getting their older son to safety in Sweden. ... The warm simplicity of her settings was never more moving than in her lullaby 'Viegela', which she reportedly sang to children from the camp, including her son Tommy, as she accompanied them voluntarily into the gas chamber at Auschwitz on 6 October 1944:

Viegela, viegela, vill
Now is the world so still!
No sound disturbs the lovely peace
My little child, now go to sleep."

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P.S. I've tracked down the original lyrics, and an Italian translation, of Farewell, my friend.

One who gave his life to free the Dutch people - Private Robert Barnes

The headstone of Private Robert Barnes of Cleator Moor, Cumbria on 21 September 2008
(The flowers in front of Robert’s grave were placed there by one of the local schoolchildren)

Private Robert Barnes, 1st Battalion (Airborne) The Border Regiment, Service No 14641710, was the son of John Barnes and Margaret Barnes, Birks Road, Cleator Moor, Cumberland (now Cumbria). He is buried in Oosterbbek War Cemetery, Netherlands (Grave Ref No: 30.C.8).

At the time of his death during WW2, Robert was serving with the 1st Battalion (Airborne) of the Border Regiment. The Battalion were glider-borne troops, forming part of the 1st Airborne Division. Robert died during Operation Market Garden (the airborne part of the Operation being codenamed 'Market') in September 1944.

Operation Market Garden was a plan to seize and hold the bridges in the Netherlands with the aim of invading and defeating Germany by the end of 1944. It proved to be one of the most ferocious battles of the Second World War. Allied airborne troops in the Oosterbeek / Arnhem area of the Netherlands, including 1st Border, fought one of the defining - and ultimately losing - battles of the Second World War. The closest bridge to Germany, Arnhem, eventually proved to be 'A Bridge Too Far'.

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