ABOUT THE FILM
The lavishly produced music film I DANCE, BUT MY HEART IS CRYING resurrects music that was considered lost for over seventy years and brings it back to life.
It is also the story of Jewish music life in National Socialist Berlin. Between 1933 and 1938, the two Jewish-run record companies Semer and Lukraphon were still able to produce music by and with Jewish artists as part of the Jewish Cultural Association. This music was completely destroyed in a single night, along with the original matrices, lyrics and sheet music. It was the night of November 9, 1938, when violent Nazi mobs viciously attacked the Jews and Jewish communities. Since then, the music was considered lost forever. The fact that this musical treasure was found again over 70 years later is nothing short of a miracle.
The shellac records of the two labels are a special kind of treasure trove. Because back then, in the politically explosive Berlin of the 1930s, they bluntly showed the contradictory sides of Jewish identity. And after the ban on Jewish artists in 1933, the records became a refuge for musicians and cabaret artists who were no longer allowed to perform in Germany.
With shellacs painstakingly reassembled from the remotest corners of the world and the newly arranged music of a top-class international music ensemble, the documentary music film approaches this almost unbelievable story of the two Berlin record companies, the tragic fate of their Jewish performers and the resurrection of a music that has lost none of its topicality and explosiveness to this day.
The film takes a closer look at the tragic fate of the Jewish artists who left behind a legacy with this music that has lost none of its topicality and explosiveness to this day.
In his new full-length-film, director Christoph Weinert resurrects their music and lets it shine in new splendor.
Today, the revival of music that was thought lost seems like a late, albeit small, triumph over the Nazi regime, which wanted to completely eradicate Jewish culture with its anti-Semitic extermination machinery.
The Yiddish song by Pinkas Lavender Ich tanz und mein Herz weint – I dance, but my heart is crying, which gave the film its title, is of a shattering ambivalence; it shows the dilemma in which the performers found themselves. As German Jews, they wanted to participate in the cultural life of this country, but after 1933 it became increasingly clear to them that they were no longer wanted in this Germany.
The twenties and thirties of the 20th century were the heyday of Jewish music and Berlin was its stage. The songs deal with love, jealousy, socialism, Zionism, dancing young women, affairs and show a culture that is only created through ethnic diversity. They also convey a picture of how naturally artists with Jewish roots were integrated into German culture.
The two record labels Semer and Lukraphon, run by Hirsch Lewin and Moritz Lewin respectively, were able to continue to exist under the protection of the Jewish Cultural Association, which was under the strict supervision of the Nazi regime and was only intended for Jews. The two Lewins are neither related by blood nor marriage. Their work was facilitated by the perfidious foreign policy planned in detail by the Nazi propaganda ministry in the run-up to the 1936 Olympic Games. The National Socialists recognized the opportunity to achieve an enormous increase in prestige at home and abroad through the Summer Olympics. As early as the summer of 1933, the Nazi government therefore issued the declaration that the Olympic Games were open to “all races and denominations”. In order to appease the Western powers, especially France and the USA, the NSDAP and its organizations refrain from spectacular anti-Jewish actions, including in the cultural sector. To increase international prestige, incitement against Jews is now also banned in the media.
In the years between 1933 and 1938, the two labels recorded dozens of Jewish artists. The two Lewin labels thus became the last refuge for Jewish musicians, who were otherwise banned from recording music in Germany. They documented Berlin’s Jewish music life without collusion and completely independently of each other. They provided a platform for Jewish artists who had been excluded from the cultural life of the capital by the Nazis‘ racial laws… until the Holocaust finally silences them, because in the wake of the propaganda success of the Olympic Games, the Nazi regime shows its true face again when, on November 9, 1938, Nazi hordes completely destroy Hirsch Lewin’s Hebrew bookshop, including a warehouse with 4,500 shellac records, texts, sheet music and original matrices.
Moritz Lewin had dissolved his record label shortly before and emigrated to the USA via Italy. His original matrices, lyrics and sheet music remain lost to this day. The Jewish emigrants who were able to leave Germany between 1933 and 1938 also exiled the music they had previously been able to buy. This meant that the music, which was spread across the globe on shellac records, was able to survive until it was painstakingly collected and restored by two record collectors from the remotest corners of the world more than 70 years later.
With the search for traces of the lost music and the new arrangements of an international ensemble, the film approaches the history of the Jewish music scene during National Socialism and the fate of one of its most important performers. Today, the recovery of music thought to be lost forever seems like a late, albeit small, triumph over the Nazi regime, which wanted to completely eradicate Jewish culture with its anti-Semitic extermination machinery.
