Her name was Lisa Kalvelage

marieinschweden · Mars 25, 2009, 9:42

En recherchant quelques informations sur l’héroïne de la -superbe- chanson de Pete Seeger My Name is Lisa Kalvelage, je suis tombé sur un article du mois dernier annonçant sa mort.

Lisa Kalvelage était une Allemande née en 1923 à Nuremberg, qui émigra aux Etats Unis après guerre et fut très active dans le mouvement pacifiste lors de la guerre du Vietnam, pour les raisons qu’énonce la chanson.

La chanson

LISA KALVELAGE

My name is Lisa Kalvelage, I was born in Nuremberg
And when the trials were held there nineteen years ago
It seemed to me ridiculous to hold a nation all to blame
For the horrors that the world did undergo
A short while later when I applied to be a G. I. bride
An American consular official questioned me
He refused my exit permit, said my answers did not show
I’d learned my lesson about responsibility.

Thus suddenly I was forced to start thinking on this theme
And when later I was permitted to emigrate
I must have been asked a hundred times where I was and what I did
In those years when Hitler ruled our state
I said I was a child or at most a teen-ager
But that only extended the questioning
They’d ask, where were my parents, my father, my mother
And to this I could answer not a thing.

The seed planted there at Nuremberg in 1947
Started to sprout and to grow
Gradually I understood what that verdict meant to me
When there are crimes that I can see and I can know
And now I also know what it is to be charged with mass guilt
Once in a lifetime is enough for me
No, I could not take it for a second time
And that is why I am here today.

The events of May 25th, the day of our protest,
Put a small balance weight on the other side
Hopefully, someday my contribution to peace
Will help just a bit to turn the tide
And perhaps I can tell my children six
And later on their own children
That at least in the future they need not be silent
When they are asked, « Where was your mother, when? »

michelmau · Mars 25, 2009, 10:25

Je connais cette chanson depuis longtemps et je suis un grand admirateur de Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton …etc.
Pete Seeger, qui doit avoir aujourd’hui dans les 80 ans, sinon plus, fait partie de ceux qui, pour moi, sont l’honneur des Etats-Unis.

YvesDep · Mars 25, 2009, 1:06

Pete Seeger fête ses 90 ans le 3 mai prochain au Madison Square Garden, en bonne compagnie (Springsteen, Arlo Guthrie, le soeurs McGarrigle, etc.).

http://www.seeger90.com/

michelmau · Mars 25, 2009, 1:32

Merci marie, pour le rappel de cette magnifique chanson. Merci également à Yves pour le lien…Bon Dieu, comme le temps passe!

J’ai retrouvé les larmes aux yeux, le vieux monsieur chantant à l’occasion de la cérémonie d’intronisation de Barack Obama en compagnie de Bruce Springsteen, l’hymne officieux des USA; « This land is your land » écrit en 1944 par Woody Goothrie.

Ca peut paraitre h-s, disons que c’est ma façon, à moi, d’accueillir Obama à Strasbourg en dehors de tout délire sécuritaire.