I Dance, but My Heart Is Crying is a documentary that explores the basically unknown Jewish musical life in Nazi Berlin during the 1930s.

Christoph Weinert’s documentary, which premiered in 2024, focuses on the period between 1933-38. Until Kristallnacht (or November Pogroms if you’re talking to Jews in Germany), Jewish music could still be produced by record companies. In this case, it’s a pair of them, Semer and Lukraphon, producing Jewish musical artists. Unfortunately, all the music was destroyed in such a short span of time in 1938. For more than 70 years, the music had been considered lost. To say that we have detective work to thank for this documentary is not an understatement.

“We have really retrieved forgotten music,” says Ranier E. Lotz. “The Nazis tried to exterminate the Jews in Europe, and almost succeeded in letting the rest of the world forget that there was Jewish cultural life going on.”

It’s kind of a fluke, really, for the music to have been discovered. It just so happened that Ejal Jakob Eisler is a historian and record collector living in Israel. Lotz had reached out to him. Anyway, Eisler heard about a house about to be demolished in Tel Aviv. Not just any house, but one that had been home to a record collector. The discoveries were just unbelievable. Israel is known for its archaeology, of course, but this was really such a great find for the world of Jewish music.

Things only got worse as the Nazis came into power. The Nuremberg laws didn’t get enacted until 1935 but the damage was already starting in 1933 with beginning to remove Jews from public life and preventing Jews from working in their chosen profession. For instance, MGM’s The Mortal Storm shows the impact on Jews working in education.

“And that resulted in a big scandal among the musicians and people who were in the film or theater business because they had international connections,” Lotz says of forbidding Jews from working. “And after a year or so, the Nazis made the bizarre decision by allowing Jews in Germany to continue in their profession, but only in the limits of what they called a Jewish culture. And that meant that, they could continue to produce music, to produce theater plays, but only in places and theaters that were restricted to Jews and only Jews could attend.”

What was Jewish life like in Nazi Berlin? We get the answer in the form of the recently rediscovered music and what knowledge has been passed down to descendants. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that label founders and most Jewish musicians, composers, and performers were Holocaust victims. Their music lives on today through the eight members of the Berlin-based international Semer Ensemble, led by Jewish-American bandleader Alan Bern. The ensemble has reconstructed and rearranged the recordings prior to taking the music on tour. I Dance, but My Heart Is Crying is a mixture of talking heads and concert film.

The music recorded by Semer and Lukraphon ranged included liturgical music, Yiddish folk songs, klezmer, and cabaret tunes. What survives is only because of detective work because the original printed sheet music did not survive the November Pogroms. If not for filmmaker watching an interview of the late Zeev Lewin, this film might not have come into existence. In fact, the film’s title comes from one of the previously lost songs, “Ich tanz und mein Herz weint.” The German translation is “I Dance and My Heart Cries.” Close enough!

The documentary only runs about 90 minutes long. Again, Weinert weaves between interviews and performances. It really is a tragic reminder of just what was lost in the span of a few years in the 20th century. Some musicians were lucky enough to escape Europe but way too many didn’t escape and met their deaths in the camps or gas chambers.

Against all the insurmountable odds, I Dance, but My Heart Is Crying manages to carry on the Jewish musical legacy of Jewish Berlin and revive the Golden Age of Jewish Music.

DIRECTOR/SCREENWRITER: Christoph Weinert
FEATURING: Alan Bern, Paul Brody, Daniel Kahn, Mark Kovnatskiy, Martin Lillich, Sasha Lurje, Fabian Schnedler, Lorin Sklamberg, and Ranier E. Lotz & Ejal Jakob Eisler

I Dance, but My Heart Is Crying held its East Coast premiere during the 2025 Atlanta Jewish Film Festival. Grade: 3.5/5

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