Es brent

[3] Most accounts agree that Gebirtig wrote the song in 1937 as a response to the pogroms in Przytyk (1936) and Brest (1937) and that he began to perform it, with some variations in the text, in coffee houses and other places in the late 1930s.

[5] After the Second World War, attempts were made to publish Gebirtig's songs, including efforts to document and transcribe versions that had not been written down but only performed.

[5] The song was also incorporated into the material of a Zionist youth choir in Bucharest; its leader Itzchak Artzi had learned it from concentration camp survivors from Poland.

The Yiddish version has been recorded by dozens of artists, including Sidor Belarsky,[6] Sarah Gorby,[7] The Workman's Circle Chorus,[8] Louis Danto,[9] and Bente Kahan.

and British band Oi Va Voi recorded a version with modified Yiddish lyrics for their album Travelling the Face of the Globe.