NOUS ARRIVONS. MIR KUMEN ON. KLANG-FILM FUN DER KINDER-SANATORYE A.N. VLADIMIR MEDEM IN MIEDZSHIN. :מיר קומען אָן קלאנג-פילם פון דער קינדער-סאנאטאריע א. נ. וולאדימיר מעדעם אין מיעדזעשין
No Place [Paris?]: No Publisher [The Bund?], 1938. Item #43520
No Date [1938?]. 1st edition. Single fold pamphlet 12mo, [3] pages. Includes photo on cover & inside. All text in Yiddish. Title translates as “We are Coming. A Sound-Film from the Children’s Sanatorium Vladimir Medem in Miedzshin” (a neighborhood in Warsaw).
Promotional pamphlet (for use in France and Belgium and possibly elsewhere) for Aleksander Ford’s 1936 film, re-released in 1937-1938 for fundraising purposes, on the children of the Medem Sanatorium, entitled, “Mir Kumen On,” which translates literally as, “We are Coming.” For the English release of the film the title was instead translated as “Children Must Laugh;” it is viewable online at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vozD_XbGHGA). The restored film was featured at the Museum of Modern Art’s To Save and Project: The 14th MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation in 2016.
“A rare record of Jewish life in Poland before World War II, this 1936 film [Mir Kumen On]was produced in several language versions as an international fundraiser for the Medem Sanatorium near Warsaw, a clinic sponsored by the General Union of Jewish Workers [the Bund] that provided care and an escape from urban poverty for some 10,000 children between 1926 and 1939. Directed in a Soviet-influenced style by Alexander Ford, a committed Communist who later became the head of Poland’s National Film School, the film follows three children as they gradually overcome their emotional withdrawal and distrust and enter the communal life of the institution” (MoMA, 2016).
From the pamphlet text:
“Narrow and dark streets of Greater Warsaw. Crowded and wet attics, attics and cellars. ‘Apartments’ filled with people who lack mother’s breasts for the always screaming child. An unemployed father. And - children everywhere, many children. Children - withered, rickety with crooked legs, sunken chests and pale faces, they - the children - know all the bitterness of life from a very early age. Often, very often, they are already ‘earners’ themselves - in a poor workshop, in the street, or until late at night they sell th apples and ‘hot, warm bagels’...
And now, from this environment, the children arrive at the Medem sanatorium: Hanale from the Jewish secular school, the pale Zalmanka from Cheder and Laser - the bagel seller.
In the beginning, everything is strange to them in the 'strange' Medem-Sanatorium: no one punishes, no one shouts, no one is angry. Everything is friendly to them, everyone strives to understand them as their best friend. Joy and freedom mixed with free, independent work rule over everything here. And our three heroes quickly got used to the new life-forms. They flourish.
They become stronger physically and mentally, they actively participate in the work of the 'self-management' of children, they begin to understand that the world does not have to be like that, as they realized in Warsaw that they can and must be someone else, someone free, someone equal, someone beautiful. The children are taken in by the spirit of true friendship, they begin to understand that person's suffering and get an aspiration to help that person. And when their daily newspaper brings news that the coal miners are on strike in Zaglembia, that their children are starving, they are deeply moved. Because - who can understand better than them what a strike means and feel more than them what is called hunger?
And at a general meeting, the children, according to their own proposal, give each one a day of their time in the sanatorium, so that the 180 children - create 180 days for their brothers in Zaglembia
Times flies in the sanatorium. And now we see our 3 'heroes' as they drive off back home. The faces of all 3 are drawn. A deep sadness lies on the young, childish faces….”
Both the pamphlet and the film end with the song “Mir Kumen On”--We Are Coming–the words by Nokhem Yud (1888-1966) and music by Yankl Troupianski (1909-1944). The film’s theme song was also used by Camp Hemshekh, in New York, as its anthem in the 1960s & 1970s.
“Everything in the film is factual and authentic. There is not a single artist in the film - everything is performed by the participating children of the Medem Sanatorium.”
We were unable to locate any copies using OCLC, nor with a google search. An unrecorded promotional brochure for a very important film.
Near Fine Condition. Very important. Exceedingly rare. (PBERL-1-9-XX).
Price: $250.00