The lyrics of the song were written in 1943 by
Hirsh Glick, a young
Jewish inmate of the
Vilna Ghetto, for the Vilna Jewish
United Partisan Organization (FPO). The title means "Never Say" (lit. "don't say – [n]ever"), and derives from the first line of the song. Glick's lyrics were set to music from a pre-war Soviet song written by Pokrass brothers,
Dmitri and , originally "" ("
Terek Cossacks' March Song"), later renamed into "Cossacks' Song", later titled by its first line as "" (''Those aren't clouds but thunderclouds''), lyrics by
Alexey Surkov. The original song itself has a history, typical of the Soviet times. The song was written in fall 1936 and first performed in the 1937 Soviet documentary "Sons of the Working People" about the 1936 military exercise of the
Red Army. The title of the film alludes at the Red Army
oath of allegiance: "I, a son of the working people, " ("") The song title refers to "" aka
the 6th Cavalry Division. The film was released in early May, but it was soon quietly removed from the distribution, supposedly because it featured marshals
Tukhachevsky and
Uborevich, repressed in late May 1937 (
Case of the Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization), and they
began to "vanish". At the same time, the November release of a disk in which
Leonid Utyosov was performing this song was removed from the distribution and replaced in December with another one, in which the film, where song originated, was not mentioned. The title "Those aren't clouds..." was used in the 1939th release of Utyosov's performance of the song. The melody of the song has nothing with traditional Cossack songs, but rather based on typical Jewish
harmonies. Some find traces of
Oyfn Pripetshik in it. Glick was inspired to write the song by news of the
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. During
World War II, "Zog nit keyn mol" was adopted by a number of
Jewish partisan groups operating in
Eastern Europe. It became a symbol of resistance against
Nazi Germany's
persecution of the Jews and
the Holocaust. In the Soviet Union, the song was first publicly performed in 1949 by
Paul Robeson under the title "The Song of the Warsaw Ghetto", sung part in English, part in Yiddish. The melody was immediately recognized by the listeners. (Probably this was an origin of the error in some sources which claim that the song was written in
Warsaw Ghetto.) While the verse was translated into Russian in the Soviet Union, the song was never performed there again, neither in Russian, nor in Yiddish. In 2007, Australian Jewish punk band
Yidcore recorded a punk rendition of the song, releasing it on their third and final full-length album ''They Tried to Kill Us. They Failed. Let's Eat!''. ==Lyrics==