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 & through
He met some surviving ghetto fighters Zionists & socialists conspired They gathered in a Lublin flat & round the kitchen table sat
They gave themselves a Hebrew name & with this word they did proclaim That vengeance is what God would will, Were there a Sod, & so they'd kill
Six million Germans... You might say it was insane That it was misdirected pain They didn't want the war to end 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 & Hamburg town Their agents worked the underground They took up jobs by the riverside & waited for the poison to arrive
& 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 An eye for an eye leaves all without sight They didn't want to make amends They wanted one thing, Nakam: Revenge
So Abba Kovner headed back With vials of poison in his sack Upon an English navy ship But to his plan the Brits were tipped
They took him into custody & the poison fell into the sea Kovner spent a year in jail & so plan A did not prevail
The rest of the group was dispersed & all their backup plans were cursed But an agent in a bakery Secured some poison from Paris
As soon as the poison bread had risen He took it to an allied prison & various reports have said There were 100's of SS prisoners dead
Six million Germans... You might say that it was wrong But were their actions weak or strong? & who are we to judge & condemn? They wanted one thing, Nakam: Revenge
Sc so Nakam was all disbanded On Palestina's shore they landed & Abba Kovner & his crew Became like many other Jews
They put aside their rage & hate & worked to build a Jewish state With Jewish towns Sc Jewish farms, Jewish guns Sc nuclear arms
Can vengeance put upon a shelf Be taken out later on someone else? Well careful how you read this tale. 'Lest your own prejudice prevail
For look around the world today & consider the role vengeance plays 'Cause history has its unpaid debts & is it better if we forget?
Six million Germans... You might say it was absurd But what becomes of a dream deferred? How could they just start again? They wanted one thing, Nakam: Revenge