Pete Seeger – My Name Is Liza Kalvelage (Guitar)

A
[tab]      E            A
I was born in Nuremberg

             D                                      A
And when the trials were held there nineteen years ago

                                     E             A
It seemed to me ridiculous to hold a nation all to blame

        D                                A
For the horrors which the world did undergo

              E
A short while later when I applied

      A
For I was a G.I. Bride

     D                                   A
An American consular official questioned me

     E                             A
He refused my exit permit, said my answers did not show

               D                        A
I'd learned my lesson about responsibility.

         E                A
To start thinking on this theme

         D                            A
And when later I was permitted to emigrate

        E              A
Where I was and what I did

         D                           A
In those years when Hitler ruled our state.

  E                         A
I said I was a child, or at most a teenager

         D                            A
But this always extended the questioning.

              E
They'd ask me where were my parents,

   A
My father, my mother,

       D                          A
And to this I could answer not a thing.

                                       E              A
The seed planted there in Nuremberg in Nineteen-Forty-Seven

D                        A
Started to sprout and to grow

                                 E                A
Gradually I understood what that verdict meant to me

               D                               A
When there are crimes that I can see and I can know.

    E                                A
And now I also know what it is to be charged with mass guilt,

D                                A
Once in a lifetime is enough for me.

E                       A
No, I could not take it

D                     A
That is why I am here today.

    E          A
The day of our protest,

      D                                 A
Put a small balance weight on the other side.

                            E         A
Hopefully, someday my contribution to peace

     D                           A
Will help just a bit to turn the tide.

    E                     A
And perhaps I can tell my children six,

    D                      A
And later on their own children,

   E                   A
At least in the future they need not be silent

              D
When they are asked

                       A
"Where was your mother when?"