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
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 [bad word] 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 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 [bad word] of a dream deferred?
How could they just start again?
They wanted one thing, Nakam: Revenge