In nineteen hundred forty five
Among the Jews who were left alive
There came a visionary man
Who turned his wrath into a plan
Abba Kovner was his name
As a partisan he earned his fame
He was a Vilna rebel Jew
A poet warrior through and through
He met some surviving ghetto fighters
Zionists and socialists conspired
They gathered in a Lublin flat
And round the kitchen table sat
They gave themselves a Hebrew name
And with this word they did proclaim
That vengeance is what god would will,
Were there a god, and so they’d kill
Six million Germans
You might say it was insane
Six million Germans
That it was misdirected pain
Six million Germans
They didn’t want the war to end
Six million Germans
They wanted one thing - Nakam: Revenge
For every Jew the Nazis gassed
For every racist law they passed
For every wrong that wasn’t right
For all the dead Nakam would fight
They formed a band of forty strong
To straighten out what had been wrong
They chose to poison water mains
Just as the Jews of old were blamed
In Nuremberg and Hamburg town
Their agents worked the underground
They took up jobs by the riverside
And waited for the poison to arrive
And Kovner went to Tel Aviv
To see what help he could receive
But the Haganah did not agree
To join in his conspiracy
Six million Germans
You might say it wasn’t right
Six million Germans
An eye for and eye leaves all without sight
Six million Germans
They didn’t want to make amends
Six million Germans
They wanted one thing - Nakam: Revenge
So Abba Kovner headed back
With viles of poison in his sack
Upon an English navy ship
But to his plan the brits were tipped
They took him into custody
And the poison fell into the sea
Kovner spent a year in jail
And so plan A did not prevail
The rest of the group it was dispersed
And all their backup plans were cursed
But an agent in a bakery
Secured some poison from Paris
As soon as the poisoned bread had risen
He took it to an allied prison
And various reports have said
There were hundreds of SS prisoners dead
Six million Germans
You might say that it was wrong
Six million Germans
But were their actions weak or strong?
Six million Germans
And who are we to judge and condemn?
Six million Germans
They wanted one thing - Nakam: Revenge
And so Nakam was all disbanded
On Palestina’s shore they landed
And Abba Kovner and his crew
Became like many other Jews
They put aside their rage and hate
And worked to build a Jewish state
With Jewish towns and Jewish farms,
Jewish guns and nuclear arms
Can vengeance put upon a shelf
Be taken out later on someone else?
Well be careful how you read this tale.
‘Lest your own prejudice prevail
For look around the world today
And consider the role that vengeance plays
‘Cause history has its unpaid debts
And is it better if we forget?
Six million Germans
You might say it was absurd
Six million Germans
But what becomes of a debt deferred
Six million Germans
How could they just start again?
Six million Germans
They wanted one thing - Nakam: Revenge
Among the Jews who were left alive
There came a visionary man
Who turned his wrath into a plan
Abba Kovner was his name
As a partisan he earned his fame
He was a Vilna rebel Jew
A poet warrior through and through
He met some surviving ghetto fighters
Zionists and socialists conspired
They gathered in a Lublin flat
And round the kitchen table sat
They gave themselves a Hebrew name
And with this word they did proclaim
That vengeance is what god would will,
Were there a god, and so they’d kill
Six million Germans
You might say it was insane
Six million Germans
That it was misdirected pain
Six million Germans
They didn’t want the war to end
Six million Germans
They wanted one thing - Nakam: Revenge
For every Jew the Nazis gassed
For every racist law they passed
For every wrong that wasn’t right
For all the dead Nakam would fight
They formed a band of forty strong
To straighten out what had been wrong
They chose to poison water mains
Just as the Jews of old were blamed
In Nuremberg and Hamburg town
Their agents worked the underground
They took up jobs by the riverside
And waited for the poison to arrive
And Kovner went to Tel Aviv
To see what help he could receive
But the Haganah did not agree
To join in his conspiracy
Six million Germans
You might say it wasn’t right
Six million Germans
An eye for and eye leaves all without sight
Six million Germans
They didn’t want to make amends
Six million Germans
They wanted one thing - Nakam: Revenge
So Abba Kovner headed back
With viles of poison in his sack
Upon an English navy ship
But to his plan the brits were tipped
They took him into custody
And the poison fell into the sea
Kovner spent a year in jail
And so plan A did not prevail
The rest of the group it was dispersed
And all their backup plans were cursed
But an agent in a bakery
Secured some poison from Paris
As soon as the poisoned bread had risen
He took it to an allied prison
And various reports have said
There were hundreds of SS prisoners dead
Six million Germans
You might say that it was wrong
Six million Germans
But were their actions weak or strong?
Six million Germans
And who are we to judge and condemn?
Six million Germans
They wanted one thing - Nakam: Revenge
And so Nakam was all disbanded
On Palestina’s shore they landed
And Abba Kovner and his crew
Became like many other Jews
They put aside their rage and hate
And worked to build a Jewish state
With Jewish towns and Jewish farms,
Jewish guns and nuclear arms
Can vengeance put upon a shelf
Be taken out later on someone else?
Well be careful how you read this tale.
‘Lest your own prejudice prevail
For look around the world today
And consider the role that vengeance plays
‘Cause history has its unpaid debts
And is it better if we forget?
Six million Germans
You might say it was absurd
Six million Germans
But what becomes of a debt deferred
Six million Germans
How could they just start again?
Six million Germans
They wanted one thing - Nakam: Revenge
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