Barbara Dane Abroad

Barbara’s death hits me hard. Though so distant I always thought of her as a close friend. When we first met a full 77 years ago – we were both in Prague for the first World Youth Festival – I would have loved to become even more than just that. I was a simple member of the delegation, representing the small American Youth for Democracy chapter at Harvard College, which I chaired at the time. Barbara was the star of the USA delegation, not just a wonderful singer, also of our beloved protest songs, but a slim, striking beauty as well. I forsook even attempts at a closer relationship because her husband in Detroit had treated me so very well when I stopped there in my cross-country hitch-hike trip a year earlier. Many years later, when I confided my one-time hopes, she laughed and said, “I had long been separated from my husband at the time.” I have never completely overcome a feeling of regret.

I met Barbara again as interpreter for her and her later husband Irwin Silber at the annual World Festival of Political Songs in East Berlin. I knew Irwin from the days of the Folksay Club of the American Youth for Democracy in 1944-1945, when we sang those songs and square danced with him as “caller”. Only when they arrived – around 1972, I think – did I realize that this was the same Barbara I had known under a different name in Prague, no longer quite so slim but as great a singer as ever, and as ever a fighter! And a wonderful person!

But it was not so easy to be her interpreter. Barbara prefaced each song with a little talk, often explaining its meaning to her and to this non-American audience. And although she didn’t know German she knew the German word for her title song “F-ck the Army – FTA” and she listened carefully to my translation: Was I “cleaning up” what she said? But that word, which has now become an integral part of the German vocabulary (unfortunately, I think) was hardly known then – and impossible to translate literally into German (alone because of its impossibility). I had to find an equivalent – and justify it to Barbara, who sought full vehemence.

I had another little problem at the final concert in East Berlin’s biggest hall, which was attended by many of the top political leaders of the GDR, including the top man Erich Honecker. Before Barbara sang her song “Insubordination” – “Subordination is a drag, And liberation is my bag, (oh yeah)” – she made her little speech, whereupon I tried to avoid words which seemed to oppose the GDR, its leaders or its army – all under daily attack by West German TV commentators. But I did not want to dilute her sentiments either. I steered between Scylla and Charybdis as successfully as Odysseus – and she (with my translation) received general applause from all sides.

A dramatic episode followed. This was during the Vietnam War years, and Barbara, after her usual introduction, included a song which was evidently known and loved by the people of Vietnam. (Was it the “Rice Song”?) On the same stage, awaiting their turn in the program, was a group of Vietnamese girls or young women. Of course they didn’t understand Barbara’s introductory words or my translation into German, and at first didn’t realize that she was singing a song of theirs (no doubt somewhat differently). But by the second verse they recognized it and -here far from home – were overjoyed. As soon as she ended they ran forward and they all embraced her – close together, the American anti-war activist and the Vietnamese – in a short, unplanned episode which was both symbolic and  extremely moving – and a proper ending of the militant international festival.

Yes, as I’ve heard, Barbara was a fighter to the end; I’m happy to have known her – but very sad, too – with a few tears – to hear of the inevitable closing of a wonderfully inspiring life story!

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