" Papirosn " was later amended to mirror the tribulations of the Holocaust in the ghettos of Poland and Lithuania . The song was used as a base for many Holocaust songs in the Lodz and Vilna Ghettos , among others . Shmerke Kaczerginski found two alternate versions of the song , both of which share the tune of the original but have different stories : One version was written by Yankele Hershkowitz , a famous street singer from the Lodz Ghetto ; it follows the story of the original song but tells a story about ration coupons in the Ghetto . The other version , written by Jewish poet Rilke Glezer , describes the Ponary massacre . An additional version from the Warsaw Ghetto makes a direct allusion to the original but the boy sells ghetto black bread instead of cigarettes . There have been other versions of the song , including non-Yiddish versions
the Holocaust
The Holocaust
Papirosn