A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE MUSICAL ACTIVITIES
WITHIN THREE GERMAN OCCUPIED CONCENTRATION
CAMPS: WARSAW, TEREZÍN, AND AUSCHWITZ
_______________
A Thesis
Presented to the
Faculty of
San Diego State University
_______________
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Arts
in
Music
_______________
by
Melanie Maxine Hutchings
Summer 2012
iii
Copyright © 2012
by
Melanie Maxine Hutchings
All Rights Reserved
iv
ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS
A Comparative Analysis of the Musical Activities within Three
German Occupied Concentration Camps: Warsaw, Terezín,
and Auschwitz
by
Melanie Maxine Hutchings
Master of Arts in Music
San Diego State University, 2012
The intention of this study was to examine the musical activities within three different
concentration camps during World War II. The chosen concentration camps for this thesis
represented three distinct types of camps: a ghetto, a transitory/labor camp, and an
extermination camp. Comparative methods were used to discover similarities and differences
of the musical activities that were allowed and encouraged by the Nazis. The study focused
on seven areas of interest: repertoire, instruments, ensembles, venues, rules dictating musical
activities, Nazi’s use of music, and the musicians’ status within the camp. It was found that
the type of musical activities that existed within the camp directly correlated with the
objective of that particular camp. Auschwitz was designed to systematically exterminate the
Jews through their elaborate gas and crematorium chambers. Terezín was used for
propaganda purposes to convince worried world leaders of the general well-being of the
Jews. And finally, Warsaw was a temporary gathering place for the Jews until its citizens
could be transported to extermination camps. Music existed in the camps and was used as a
tool to survive the war.
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................. iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................... vii
CHAPTER
1
INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................1
Review of Literature ................................................................................................5
Purpose .....................................................................................................................7
Limitations ...............................................................................................................8
Methodology ............................................................................................................8
Definition of Terms..................................................................................................9
2
AUSCHWITZ ..............................................................................................................11
Repertoire ...............................................................................................................12
Instruments .............................................................................................................15
Venues....................................................................................................................17
Musical Groups ......................................................................................................18
Nazi Policy on Music .............................................................................................19
Musicians’ Status ...................................................................................................20
Nazis’ Use of Music...............................................................................................22
3
TEREZÍN .....................................................................................................................24
Repertoire ...............................................................................................................26
Instruments .............................................................................................................31
Venues....................................................................................................................33
Musical Groups ......................................................................................................34
Nazi Policy on Music .............................................................................................37
Musicians’ Status ...................................................................................................38
Nazis’ Use of Music...............................................................................................39
4
WARSAW ...................................................................................................................42
Repertoire ...............................................................................................................44
vi
Instruments .............................................................................................................48
Venues....................................................................................................................49
Musical Groups ......................................................................................................52
Nazi Policy on Music .............................................................................................54
Musicians’ Status ...................................................................................................56
Nazis’ Use of Music...............................................................................................57
5
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................60
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................71
vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost I offer my sincerest gratitude to my thesis chair Dr. Eric Smigel,
who generously supported me throughout the writing process. I am grateful for his
willingness to work with me and offer invaluable advice and direction.
I would like to thank my family members, especially my husband, Phillip Bourne, for
his endless love and encouragement. He supplied me with motivation when it was lacking,
comfort in moments of frustration, and advice when it was needed. I could not have written
this thesis without the patience of my two small children, Chase Allen Bourne and Brielle
Joyce Bourne. They are a great source of happiness to my husband and me.
I owe my deepest gratitude to my mother. She spent countless hours tending my
children while I was at the library studying, writing, and editing my thesis.
1
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
The tunes are few, a dozen, the same ones every day, morning and evening:
marches and popular songs dear to every German. They lie engraven on our
minds and will be the last thing in Lager that we shall forget: they are the
voice of the Lager, the perceptible expression of its geometrical madness,
of the resolution of others to annihilate us first as men in order to kill
us more slowly afterwards.
- Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz
The Nazi party officially formed a unified government after the elections in 1932,
when they received 33 percent of the vote by the people. Hitler and his followers had made
an unsuccessful attempt to take control over the Bavarian Government as early as 1923 in the
“Beer Hall Putch,” which led to his imprisonment. Finally, in 1932, Hitler gained enough of
a following after the Nazis campaigned in Munich, Vienna, and Bayreuth to win the election.
The German populace who voted in favor of the anti-Semitic leader hoped that the
charismatic Hitler could save Germany from the economic depression following World
War I.1 The German economy was highly unstable following the war, with massive
unemployment and rampant poverty. Hitler’s eloquent speeches generated widespread hope
among Germans that the Nazi regime could revitalize their country. In response to questions
of loyalty to Hitler, a former Nazi replied:
Murder, we surely didn’t want that. But the world should understand what Hitler
meant to us. In 1933 I was 28 years old and had an architect’s diploma, but
because of the depression I had never had a job or earned a penny. Do you know
what it’s like for a young man to live without hope, without a chance to make a
living? Hitler gave us work, and more, he gave us hope, no price seemed too high
to pay for that. No one turns down hope. So we followed him.2
1
Susan J. Eischeid, “The Musical Climate in Nazi Germany during the Pre-War Years (1931-1938) and
the Impact of Wagnerian Causal Effects on it and on Musical Life in the Holocaust Period” (Ph.D. diss.,
University of Cincinnati, 1992), 56-57.
2
Alexander Donat, The Holocaust Kingdom: A Memoir (New York: RineHart, 1965), 262.
2
On 30 January 1933 Hitler was appointed Chancellor of the newly official party, and
within one year he implemented policies to solve the “Jewish problem,” which included
expulsion, ghettoization, and extermination.3 Under the auspices of the Nazi party, Hitler
legalized genocide through the innovation of concentration camps.4 The realization of
Hitler’s vision of a German re-birth necessitated the development of concentration camps.
Named after Maria Theresa, Terezín (or the German name Theresienstadt) was
originally constructed in 1780-90 and was used to accommodate military and political
prisoners.5 On 10 June 1940, the Gestapo took control of the city of Terezín and turned it into
a walled ghetto. This camp was unique because the Nazis portrayed Terezín as the “Paradise
Ghetto” to deceive foreign activists with ethical concerns focused primarily on the treatment
of Jews under the overly zealous anti-Semitic leader. Originally designed to accommodate
7,000 residents, the city became home to over 90,000 individuals, which created sanitary
problems, overcrowded living situations, and uncomfortable sleeping arrangements. Each of
the residents was subjected to hard labor, exhaustion, severe punishments, disease, and
starvation.6 Between 1941 and 1945, under the operation of the ghetto, over 140,000 Jews
were deported to Terezín, and of those, only several thousand survived. Susan G. Ament,
author of the article “Music and Art of the Holocaust,” writes, “The camp was originally
intended for the old and sickly, prominent disabled Jewish World War I veterans, and Jews
too famous to merely disappear without inquiry from the world community.”7 Despite the
horrendous living conditions, music, art, and culture flourished, which eventually benefited
the Nazis in their attempts to convince investigators that all was well. On 1 May 1945,
control of the Terezín ghetto transferred from the Germans to the Red Cross, and a week
later, on 8 May 1945, Terezín was liberated by Soviet troops.
3
David WeinBerg and Byron L. Sherwin, “The Holocaust: An Historical Overview” in Encountering the
Holocaust: An Interdisciplinary Survey, ed. Susan G. Ament and Byron L. Sherwin (Chicago: Impact Press,
1979), 12.
4
Ibid., 18.
5
Susan G. Ament, “Music and Art of the Holocaust” in Encountering the Holocaust: An Interdisciplinary
Survey, ed. Susan G. Ament and Byron L. Sherwin (Chicago: Impact Press, 1979), 384.
6
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Theresienstadt,” Holocaust Encyclopedia,
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/ (accessed November 8, 2006).
7
Ament, 384.
3
Auschwitz became the center of Nazi attention because of its vast structure. There
were three main camps associated with Auschwitz, and over 50 satellite camps spread out on
the periphery of present-day Poland. The satellite facilities were typically located next to
factories or industries in which prisoners worked. Auschwitz I, which functioned as an
administrative center for the entire complex, was originally used for the confinement of
Polish intellectuals, resistance movement members, and Soviet prisoners of war.8 Auschwitz
I was established in the spring of 1940 in old army barracks in Oswiecim, which could house
30,000 prisoners. Auschwitz-Birkenau, or Auschwitz II, was constructed in 1941 two
kilometers from Auschwitz I, but did not begin operating until 1942. Birkenau was
comprised of different sections, each divided by barbed fencing, which eliminated
intermingling between gender specific sectors. Birkenau housed inmates used for slave labor,
but became known as the “mass killing factory.” Unfortunately for the prisoners, those
performing labor could be replaced with each additional transport, thus eliminating any Nazi
incentive to keep inmates alive. With many of the transitory concentration camps feeding
into Auschwitz, it became necessary to develop an effective method for annihilation of the
Jews, which led Nazis to develop an extensive gas and cremation factory. After the
expansion of the Birkenau camp, Auschwitz could “process” over 4,000 inmates every
24 hours, which totaled an astounding 1.1 to 1.6 million victims.9 Auschwitz at Monowitz
was the last to be established in 1942. The inmates imprisoned in Monowitz were used in the
factory of I. G. Farben’s Buna Werke for synthetic rubber. Beyond the 6,000 Nazi guards
who worked in Auschwitz, the troops delegated responsibility to internal Kapos and
Sonderkommandos, normally German criminals imprisoned in Auschwitz. These Kapos and
Sonderkommandos were responsible for preparing new arrivals for gassing, transferring
corpses from gas chambers to the furnaces, and supervising labor.
Before the Nazi invasion in Warsaw, the city had already established itself as a
Jewish Center in Europe with functional educational, religious, and welfare systems. Warsaw
attracted Nazi attention because of the high concentration of Jews, thus providing an easy
alternative to the task of transporting millions of people to a designated area. German troops
8
9
United Stated Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Shirli Gilbert, Music in the Holocaust: Confronting Life in the Nazi Ghettos and Camps (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 2005), 144.
4
entered Warsaw on 29 September 1939 and immediately closed schools, confiscated personal
property, initiated slave labor, and disbanded all Jewish organizations except their welfare
system. German troops erected a ten-foot wall topped with barbed wire and set up watch
towers to oversee the population. Warsaw was unique because it did not function as an
extermination camp—it was devoid of hanging walls, torture chambers, gas chambers, and
crematoria. Instead, the Jews fought starvation, exhaustion, laborious manual labor,
shootings at Ponary, and deportations to extermination locations.
The residents of concentration camps during World War II experienced more than
unemployment, hunger, rampant death, and suffering. Amid the reality of war and its horrors,
inmates participated in music, art, and theater. As Eliska Kleinova, a survivor of the Terezín
concentration camp stated, “I consider it a very strange phenomenon that under these horrible
circumstances were created such magnificent works…It’s amazing that people are able to
create such beauty while surrounded by such atrocities.”10 The extent of musical activities
depended on the structure and rules in each of the concentration camps and ghettos. Music
had multiple roles within the concentration camps, including, but not limited to,
entertainment for the German guards and wealthy citizens, background music for grueling
labor, employment for some, and a tool to keep the marching labor contingents in organized
lines. All musical activities were subject to Nazi supervision, but because of the number of
responsibilities the Nazi troops had, the rules were inconsistent.
There were a variety of individuals and groups who participated in musical activities
within the concentration camps. Social hierarchies formed in each imprisonment camp, and
one’s status was determined by such factors as political affiliation, race, health, employment,
expertise, reason for imprisonment, and even monetary assets. Prisoners valued the essentials
instead of the luxuries—buttons, lint, material, cigarettes, stale bread, needles, and thread
were all components of their fiscal system that they used to bargain and trade. The divide
among prisoners contributed to the musical diversity that existed throughout the
concentration camps. Wealthy and prominent figures in the camps were allowed to
participate and be entertained by organized musical events, whereas the poor, needy, and sick
often participated in spontaneous or informal musical activities. Another factor that added to
10
Joshua R. Jacobson, “Music in the Holocaust,” Choral Journal 36, no. 5 (1995): 9.
5
the variety of musical activities was the actual function of the concentration camp. There
were hundreds of detainment centers falling into three main categories: extermination camps,
transitory/labor camps, and walled-in city ghettos. Extermination camps were built
exclusively for the purpose of systematically killing the prisoners using gas and crematorium
chambers. While prisoners were detained, waiting to be selected for death, they were
assigned a work detachment and were forced to assist the SS command in factories, camp
chores, and various other forms of labor. Transitory labor camps were essentially holding
centers whose prisoners were intended to be transferred to one of the extermination camps
and prisoners were used as free labor. Walled-in ghettos were city districts, often literally
enclosed by walls, in which the Germans concentrated the regional Jewish population
intending to isolate selected Jewish communities not only from non-Jews but also from other
Jewish settlements. The type of detainment camp determined the musical activities allowed
and encouraged within its walls.
In all three concentration camps music existed on many levels of the prison society,
but functioned in very different and fundamental ways. There are some studies that explore
music in the holocaust and give examples of composers and performances, but a comparative
study will articulate the differences in musical activities among a selection of concentration
camps. A comparative analysis will establish a correlation between the musical activities
encouraged by the Nazi regime and the fundamental purpose of the individual camp. Terezín,
Auschwitz, and Warsaw represent many of the concentration camps in operation during
World War II under the rule of Nazi Germany. They also represent three categories of
camps—although they were all concentration camps, their individual roles in the “Final
Solution” were unique. The administration and infrastructure of the camps at Auschwitz,
Warsaw, and Terezín differed, which relate directly to the distinctive ways that inmates
developed and participated in musical productions within their respective environment. The
camp administration and rules that enforced prisoners’ behavior affected the manner in which
music was integrated into camp life.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
For years after the Second World War, the study of musical life within the
concentration camps was overlooked by scholars. More recently, several studies have
6
emerged reflecting heightened interest in the cultural activities of camp prisoners. In Music in
the Holocaust: Confronting Life in the Nazi Ghettos and Camps, Shirli Gilbert challenges the
assumptions that music functioned as a “spiritual” tool to lift spirits, enabling prisoners to
confront the horrors of the camps. Instead, she claims that music was not exempt from the
contamination that Nazism imposed on every aspect of culture and life.11 Gilbert studies
several camps and argues that the musical activities did, in fact, extend beyond private
performances. Gilbert focuses primarily on the diversity of musical activities within an
individual concentration camp, and she attributes the multiplicity of musical activities to the
stratification of the camp’s infrastructure.
Joshua Jacobson’s article in the Choral Journal titled “Music in the Holocaust”
explores musicians in the holocaust and their personal accounts of the conditions they
endured while they performed beautiful works such as Mendelssohn’s Elijah and Verdi’s
Requiem. Jacobson gives an overview of music in the Łódź Ghetto, Vilna Ghetto, and the
Terezín Transit camp. Jacobson describes the rehearsal process for the ensemble that
performed Verdi’s Requiem including details on performances, the composers, and musical
activities.
Music in Terezín 1941-1945 by Joža Karas is a detailed scholarly study of the musical
activities specific to the Terezín concentration camp. Karas spent ten years studying the
Terezín camp and the cultural activities that emerged throughout the war years. Karas
interviewed several camp survivors, and his book features many of their personal witnesses
to the performances and uses of music in Terezín. Karas gives pertinent details of the
repertoire, concert dates, and ensemble information.
Autobiographies of survivors are numerous and provide a wealth of information of
uses of music within the camps. Music of Another World is Szymon Laks’s remarkable story
of surviving Auschwitz. While detained, Laks had many musical responsibilities including
arranging, copying music, and conducting the orchestra, all of which he describes in his
book. Laks talks about the difficulties he faced, including the death rate of his musicians, and
lack of complete musical scores. Primo Levi’s autobiography, Se Quest Un’Uomo, gives
insightful observations to the living conditions and daily activities of the prisoners stationed
11
Gilbert, 1-20.
7
in Auschwitz. For example, he describes in detail the initiation process to the camp where
prisoners are tattooed, shaved, striped, and deloused. He also describes the process of
smuggling within the camp and how prisoners were able to obtain extra food and supplies.
The Pianist documents Wladyslaw Szpilman’s survival and experiences as a pianist in the
Warsaw Ghetto. Gila Flam’s Singing for Survival, Fania Fenelon’s Playing for Time, Anita
Lasker-Wallfisch’s Inherit the Truth, and Joseph Bor’s The Terezín Requiem are all
autobiographies of surviving musicians from concentration camps. Albert Speer’s book
Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs is a compilation of many personal accounts provided by
different survivors of the concentration camp. These memoirs aided the author in collecting a
repertoire and instrument list for specific camps. They also gave insight to the rules of the
camp, their individual interactions with German officers, the venues used by musicians, and
how the musicians were treated.
Along with scholarly studies of music in the concentration camps and
autobiographies of survivors, attention to general holocaust studies was necessary to provide
details concerning the infrastructures and internal administrations of Auschwitz, Warsaw,
and Terezín. Susan Ament and Byron Sherwin’s book Encountering the Holocaust: An
Interdisciplinary Survey, Zdenek Lederer’s book Ghetto Theresienstadt, Michael Meyer’s
book The Politics of Music in the Third Reich, Susan Eischeid’s dissertation “The Musical
Climate in Nazi Germany during the Pre-War Years (1931-1938) and the Impact of
Wagnerian Causal Effects on it and on Musical Life in the Holocaust Period,” and Norbert
Troller’s book Theresienstadt all survey the holocaust and aided the author in providing
pertinent historical and background information to the concentration camps and the holocaust
in general.
PURPOSE
The purpose of this research is to conduct a comparative study of music in different
concentration camps, and to analyze how the unique traits of particular ghetto environments
directly correlate to the types of musical activities allowed and encouraged by the Nazi
regime.
8
LIMITATIONS
Research will be limited to three concentration camps where an affluence of resources
and documents will aid the author to make an adequate comparison of musical activities
within the different camps. There are three separate camps represented in this comparative
study: a ghetto, an extermination camp, and a transitory/labor camp. Terezín, served as a
transitory/labor camp, as well as a model concentration camp that built a veneer to deceive
foreign investigators of the harsh reality of the living conditions of its prisoners. Warsaw
served as a walled-in ghetto where inmates were used for slave labor with the intention of
gathering Jews and temporarily housing them until they met their death in transportations
east to extermination camps, like Auschwitz. Extermination camps were hostile prisons that
held a selected number of healthy prisoners used for slave labor, but the main goal was to
exterminate large numbers of Jews in the gas and crematorium chambers. Although each
camp had a different fundamental purpose, many aspects of the camps were similar, which
confuses definitive parameters and definitions. Essentially all concentration camps
functioned to realize the Nazi plan of “The Final Solution,” but each functioned in separate
ways.
Research will also be limited to the specific dates of operation for each concentration
camp. The author will not explore any musical productions before or after the dates of
official Nazi governed concentration camps. The first prisoners arrived in Auschwitz in May
1940 and the camp was liberated by soviet troupes on January 1945. The Warsaw ghetto was
officially established in October 1940, but following the Warsaw uprising, the Germans
bombed and obliterated the ghetto buildings and citizens by April of 1943. Terezín operated
from November 1941 to April 1945.
METHODOLOGY
I will compare the following elements related to musical activities in the
concentration camps of Terezín, Auschwitz, and Warsaw: repertoire, instruments, venues,
musical groups, Nazi’s policy on music, musicians’ status within the social hierarchy of the
particular camp, and Nazis’ use of music. The author will consult memoirs from each of the
three camps, scholarly studies, articles, dissertations, and historical accounts. Therefore,
methodology includes historical research, biographical studies, comparisons of camps and
9
musical/cultural life within, and comparisons of the camp infrastructures and how they relate
and affected the development of music.
DEFINITION OF TERMS
Antisemitism: Prejudice and hostility toward Jews as a religious, racial, or ethnic
group.
Aryan Race: “Aryan” was originally applied to people who spoke any IndoEuropean language. The Nazis, however, primarily applied the term to people of Northern
European racial background. Their aim was to avoid what they considered the
“bastardization of the German race” and to preserve the purity of European blood.
Concentration Camp: A guarded compound for the detention or imprisonment of
aliens, members of ethnic minorities, and political opponents. A place or situation
characterized by extremely harsh conditions. For the purpose of this study the term
“concentration camp” will be applied to all variations of camps, such as labor camps,
extermination camps, and transitory holding camps.
Extermination Camp: Facilities that Nazi Germany built during WWII for the
systematic killing of Jews, Romani, Russian prisoners-of-war, ill prisoners, and those
socially or racially undesirable. The majority of prisoners brought to extermination camps
were not expected to survive more than 24 hours beyond arrival. Known also as “death
camps,” these included Belzec, Chelmno, Maidanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka, and Auschwitz.
Final Solution: The official name given to Hitler’s plan to destroy the Jews of
Europe and purify Germany. The program was deceptively disguised as “resettlement in the
East.”
Forced Labor Camp: A guarded compound for the imprisonment of undesirable
individuals including Jews, Romani, political opponents, and homosexuals. These forced
labor camps were established near coal mines, factories, or other industrial plantations so that
the Germans could exploit labor from the prisoners.
Genocide: The deliberate and systematic destruction of a religious, racial, national, or
cultural group.
Ghetto: A section of a city where all Jews from the surrounding areas were forced to
reside. Surrounded by barbed wire or walls, the ghettos were often sealed so that people were
10
prevented from leaving or entering. Lodz, Warsaw, Vilna, Riga, Minsk were all ghettos
established by the Nazi party.
Holocaust: Literally meaning “a completely burned sacrifice.” During the years
1933-1944, when Adolf Hitler was chancellor and eventually a totalitarian leader, the goal of
the Nazi party was to purge Germany of the uncleanliness that they felt resided in anyone of
impure European blood. They set out to accomplish this by setting up various types of
concentration camps where mass killings and murders took place. This period of time is now
referred to as the Holocaust.
Jundenrat: Jewish councils Germans established Jewish administrations within the
concentration camps. They were required to ensure that Nazi orders and regulations were
implemented and sought to provide basic community services.
Reichskulturkammer: Division of Nazi government that concerned itself with
cultural affairs in Germany.
Reichsmusikkammer: Division of Nazi government that concerned itself with
musical affairs in Germany. The obligatory union for music practitioners in all facets of
music-making and the music industries. Duties included: set wages for professional
musicians, regulated certification and restricted amateurs from performing for money,
introduced examinations and training courses for private music instructors, and established
old age pension plan for artists. Proof of Aryan lineage was necessary for membership
opportunity.
SS: Abbreviation for Schutzstaffel (Defense Protective Units). Originally organized
as Hitler’s personal bodyguard, the SS was transformed into a giant organization by Heinrich
Himmler. Although various SS units were assigned to the battlefield, the organization is best
known for carrying out the destruction of European Jewry.
Transitory Camp/Holding Camp: Those camps or areas sanctioned off for the
purpose of holding prisoners until they were transported to either a labor camp or an
extermination camp.
11
CHAPTER 2
AUSCHWITZ
Auschwitz was in operation for approximately four and a half years between June
1940 and January 1945 and was considered one of the most severe camps under Nazi rule.
Auschwitz fell into the category of extermination camps whose sole purpose was to
efficiently and quickly kill all whom Germans perceived as undesirable. The dreadful
atmosphere of Auschwitz included forced labor, threats of extermination, spontaneous
beatings, starvation, and harsh leaders. Auschwitz had a self-rule administration that
consisted of the Lageralteste (camp leader), Blockalteste (block leaders), and Kapos (in
charge of work commandos), all staffed with prisoners of Auschwitz, most of whom were
convicted thieves, felons, and criminals. The most ruthless criminal prisoners were generally
chosen and given a considerable degree of power. All supervisors enjoyed numerous
advantages, including exemption from physical labor, extra food rations, a somewhat better
supply of clothing, and better living conditions. Most Kapos stole food and clothes from
those prisoners they presided over, took bribes, or arbitrarily beat individuals in hopes to
evade poor treatment by the Germans. Shirli Gilbert, the author of Music in the Holocaust:
Confronting Life in the Nazi Ghettos and Camps, writes, “Living under the command of
criminal functionaries generally meant more terror, less rest, and severe restrictions on the
already limited freedom of the prisoners.”12 Prisoners were woken up at 4:30 a.m., and after a
mandatory roll-call set off to their respective work assignments. Regardless of the season or
weather conditions, prisoners labored outdoors and were supervised by their counterparts,
thus sparing Germans from exposure to the harsh elements. Labor typically lasted between
10 and 12 hours a day, except for Sundays when they were assigned alternative tasks such as
cleaning, showering, and preparation for the following week. After their return, they attended
another roll call, sometimes lasting hours, were fed, and then were confined to their
individual barracks.
12
Gilbert, 147.
12
A hierarchy existed in Auschwitz: ranks were dependent on various factors, primarily
national or religious origins. Jews and Romani were at the bottom of the racial ladder, Poles,
Russians, and other Slavs were viewed slightly better. German prisoners usually ranked the
highest and assumed most leadership positions.
REPERTOIRE
The separate living quarters for men and women, and the restrictions on visitations
between the two, necessitated the development of two Nazi approved orchestras in
Auschwitz-Birkenau: a men’s orchestra and a women’s orchestra. The two orchestras, under
the same Nazi rules and regulations, had vastly different repertoires. Each played marches for
the daily roll calls and for the departures and arrivals of work contingents, but the marches
varied because of the limited access to written music. Scores, or partial scores, were obtained
through a part of the camp known as “Canada,” where new transports would leave all their
luggage and valuables behind before they were either selected for death or assigned to a work
detachment.13 Their property was seized and became a rich inheritance to the Germans. On
occasion, German officers would pay a visit to the orchestra and make demands of new
repertoire they wanted to hear. Szymon Laks, conductor of the men’s orchestra in Auschwitz,
recalls, “One day Blockführer Stefan Baretzky (him I will remember!) brought us a march
with the arrogant title ‘Deutsche Eichen’ (German Oaks), with an order, tinged with a threat,
that we should play it whenever he, Baretzky, was within our sight, far away or close by.”14
Learning new music was also highly dependent on the musical memory of the leaders in the
respective orchestras. The leaders were expected to transcribe from memory previously
learned music and melodies from pre-war years, and then orchestrate the songs for the
unusual assortment of instruments under their baton. The song selections reflected the varied
musical backgrounds of each conductor and music copyist imprisoned in Auschwitz.
13
It was named Canada because of the German perception that Canada was a wealthy nation. Transports
were encouraged to bring along their most prized possessions and oftentimes, musicians valuing their musical
instruments, scores, and manuscript paper, brought them in lieu of necessities. Germans stocked Canada with
the items that they stole from each prisoner that entered the camp.
14
Szymon Laks, Music of Another World, trans. Chester A. Kisiel (Illinois: Northwestern University
Press, 1979), 71.
13
Alma Rosé was the women’s orchestral conductor through most of its existence. The
niece of Gustav Mahler, Rosé had an extremely rich musical upbringing, which aided her in
developing a wide range of musical repertoire. In Alma Rosé: Vienna to Auschwitz, Richard
Newman and Karen Kirtley write, “Alma faced the difficult problem of providing music for
the orchestra. She had to arrange from the miscellany of scores or scraps of sheet music new
arrivals had brought to the camp…or to enlarge on tunes she remembered or melodies others
would hum to her.”15 At the orchestra’s height, it had an impressive repertoire of marches,
fox trots, Viennese waltzes, chamber music, opera, operetta, folk music, Gypsy songs, hit
songs and tunes, “German jazz,” and adaptations of orchestral music.16 Specifically, the
orchestra played around 20 military marches, including selections by Berlioz, Schubert,
Sousa, and Suppé. They played Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, and the first movement of
his A-Major Violin Concerto, Brahms’s Hungarian Dances, Bach’s Chaconne, and
Schubert’s Lilac Time Serenade. In her memoir, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch recalls that “Fania
had a remarkable memory and transcribed the Pathétique sonata by Beethoven for string
quartet, and we played it one evening.”17 They also performed Schumann’s Reverie and
Träumerei, Nightingale by Alabieff, Leoncavallo’s Mattinata, and Johann Strauss, Jr.’s Tales
from the Vienna Woods and Blue Danube. Music copyists and arrangers often had a simple
melody or piano reduction along with the responsibility to orchestrate the song for the entire
group of odd instruments. On one such occasion, Fania Fénelon orchestrated Lustspiel for ten
violins, a flute, reed pipes, two accordions, three guitars, five mandolins, drums, and some
cymbals.18 Overtures by Rossini and Suppé, and Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen were played
along with contemporary music of the day, including Twelve Minutes with Peter Kreuder,
Wein, Wein, nur du Allein by Sieczyński, Under the Red Lanterns of San Paoli, When Lilacs
Bloom, songs by Zarah Leander and Marika Rökk, Laughing Polka, Lili Marlene, Charge of
the Light Brigade, and Song of the Volga Boatmen. Some other pieces featured included
15
Richard Newman and Karen Kirtley, Alma Rosé: Vienna to Auschwitz, ed. Reinhard G. Pauly (Portland:
Amadeus Press, 2000), 247.
16
Ibid., 262.
17
Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, Inherit the Truth 1939-1945: A Memoir of Survival and the Holocaust (London:
Giles de la Mare, 1996), 84.
18
Fania Fénelon and Marcelle Routier, Playing for Time, trans. Judith Landry (New York: Atheneum,
1976), 53.
14
Czardas by Monti, Marche Militaire, Peter Kreuder’s Wenn es Frühling Wird, Lustspiel by
Suppé, the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, Josef, Josef, and the first
movement of the E-minor Violin Concerto by Mendelssohn. The music was not limited to
purely orchestral music as some of the musicians associated with the camp orchestra were
singers, who sang arias from the operas The Barber of Seville, Carmen, Cavalleria
Rusticana, Madame Butterfly, Rigoletto, and Tosca, as well as the Bell Song from Lakmé.
Arias included The Merry Widow, The Land of Smiles, The Gypsy Princess, and White Horse
Inn, as well as Viennese operettas.19
When Szymon Laks arrived in the men’s music block, he was immediately
recognized as a proficient musician and was given the title of Notenschreiber, or music
copyist, and eventually became the official conductor of the men’s orchestra. Laks recalls
that his responsibilities included “harmonizing and orchestrating new pieces, transcribing the
individual parts, composing new marches in the German style or recreating old ones from
memory in accordance with the wishes of the commander or his subordinates.”20 Johann
Schwarzhuber, the orchestra’s commander, was a great music lover and consistently urged
the orchestra to expand their repertoire of both marches and light music. There were also
many instances when German officers brought a bare melody of a new march or popular
piece that was expected to be added to the orchestra’s repertoire. The men’s orchestra
focused primarily on marches and German popular music, unlike the women’s orchestra,
which enjoyed classical music in addition to their required marches. Although not a
comprehensive list, the marches Laks conducted were Alte Kameraden, Berliner Luft (Berlin
Air), Heimat, deine Sterne, Deutsche Eichen (German Oaks), Argonner Wald (Aronne
Forest), and Gruss an Obersalzberg. Along with marches, the orchestra played potpourris,
overtures of German operetta, and Viennese Walzes. 21 The commander Schwarzhuber
ordered the composition of two potpourris, one based on Schubert melodies and the other on
Russian themes. Laks collaborated with Heinz Lewin and Leon Weintraub and produced the
requested potpourris, one titled Erinnerungen un Schubert (Memories of Schubert), and the
19
Fénelon and Routier, 53, 90, 93-94, 102, 106, 125-126, 128; Lasker-Wallfisch, 79; Newman and
Kirtley, 263.
20
Laks, 46.
21
Ibid., 38, 49, 53, 58, 74, 76.
15
other named Schwaze Augen, based on the Russian song Ochi Chorniye.22 Occasionally, the
orchestra would perform forbidden Polish or Jewish music. Laks found a melody titled Three
Warsaw Polonaises of the 18th Century, hand written without accompaniment or
harmonization, and after washing the crumpled and torn-up document he arranged all three
polonaises for a small chamber ensemble.23 Once the men’s orchestra acquired a violoncello,
Laks was able to write some chamber music, including pieces for a string quartet.
The orchestra often entertained German guests of the music block, including officers
Perry Broad, Heinrich Bischop, and Joachim Wolff. Other times, individual musicians
selected from the orchestra were hired for measly payment in cigarettes or bread to perform
for camp VIP’s birthdays or special occasions. They would often serenade the celebrant in
the early morning, and later in the evening would play in the VIP’s private room where there
would be dancing, music, and food.24
The size and talent of the orchestra changed from day to day because of the high
death rate in Auschwitz, which often resulted in missing parts from the music. The “holes,”
as Laks called them, eventually were filled with an orchestration technique called “Odeon.”
Odeon was achieved by writing the most important themes in small notes in the other parts,
so with sudden disappearances, musicians could play alternative parts to fill in the gaps and
make the overall sound full and consistent.25
INSTRUMENTS
Obtaining new instruments was a continual process for both orchestras in AushwitzBirkenau, which relied heavily on the instruments confiscated and sent to Canada from new
transports. The men’s orchestra was organized several years before the women’s, and was
therefore fully equipped with an impressive array of instruments long before the women’s
orchestra was formed. When Syzmon Laks first entered the men’s Music Barracks 15
following his transport to Auschwitz, he was astonished to see nicely polished instruments
22
Ibid., 70.
23
Ibid., 65. Following the war, Laks recreated the three polonaises from memory and they were published
in 1950 by the Polish Music Publishers in Kraków.
24
Ibid., 77, 80, 95.
25
Ibid., 48.
16
displayed on the wooden partitions. The instruments included helicon, trombone, trumpets, a
brass tenor, alto horns, saxophones, clarinets, two flutes, one piccolo, double bass, bass drum
with cymbals, snare drum with all the percussion paraphernalia, accordions, violins, and
violas. Following a transport from Terezín, the orchestra acquired new music stands, a few
extra violins, a trumpet, and a cello that happened to be the first cello to enter the camp.26
This abundant supply of instruments led Helen Spitzer, a member of the women’s orchestra,
to negotiate with the men and ask them to supply the women with violins and any other
instruments that the men could spare.27 This German approved exchange proved necessary in
the acquisition of instruments for the women’s orchestra conducted by Alma Rosé.
Alma Rosé gained an extraordinary amount of respect from her superiors because of
her discipline, talent, and strict command over the orchestra. Many of Rosé’s petitions for
new instruments or improvements to the orchestra were granted, pending the availability of
supplies, because of the esteem she garnered. Rosé was able to obtain a Bechstein piano, an
instrument that the men’s orchestra long desired, which allowed her to try out her
arrangements and coach individual players.28 The instruments Rosé had at her disposal
included a piano, violins, flutes, reed pipes, two accordions, guitars, mandolins, drums,
cymbals, cello, and a double bass. In his memoir, Szymon Laks recalls that “the women’s
orchestra lacked the wind instruments available to the men, especially the brass, resulting in
an ‘effeminate’ sound.”29 Orchestrating for the odd collection of instruments was horribly
difficult, and Fania writes, “in preparing a rendition of the first movement of Beethoven’s
Fifth Symphony, she used mandolins for the key phrase, ra-pa-pa-pum, with violins coming
in to produce a swell on the fourth note.”30
The commander of the women’s orchestra helped to “organize”31 a double bass for
the women’s orchestra, but they lacked a musician able to play the much desired instrument,
26
Ibid., 32-33, 91.
27
Newman and Kirtley, 231.
28
Fénelon and Routier, 27; Newman and Kirtley, 254.
29
Laks, 100-101.
30
Newman and Kirtley, 263.
31
To “organize” meant to acquire an object through the means of trading, purchasing, begging, theft, or
violence. According to Szymon Laks one would organize for pieces of bread, bread loaves, cigarettes, soup,
supplies, buttons, thread, boards, tables, a bucket of coal, a straw mattress, medicine, clothes, underwear,
17
which eventually led to an unusual agreement for Heinz Lewin, a member of the men’s
orchestra, to be excused from his duties as a watchmaker in order to provide lessons to
Yvette for two months. Under the normal rules, men and women of Auschwitz were
forbidden from visiting or communicating with one another and, if caught, were punished by
death.
VENUES
Individual barracks and blocks were the sites of the majority of informal and
spontaneous music making in the camps. The demanding work schedule of the ordinary
prisoner limited the opportunities for organized musical activities, but occasionally group or
solo singing would occur. As Elisabeth Lichtenstein, a former German-Jewish prisoner in
Auschwitz, recalls:
All the women were in a state of complete exhaustion and at the end of their
nervous strength. Some were standing around apathetically, some were screaming
and laughing hysterically, many squabbled and fought among themselves. There
were also those that sang. A neighbor who had accompanied me from Szered and
knew that I was a music-lover and that I had a good voice, said that I should sing
something, so that we would not all go mad…I began to sing the Ave Maria. I did
not know the text, I sang only the melody. While I sang, it became quiet in the
hall, those who were screaming fell silent, those who were fighting stopped.32
Giselle Perl, a Jewish doctor in Auschwitz, described similar musical events in the barracks,
one of a beautiful singer, Lily, who, determined to live, would sneak around and hide in
prison blocks. Perl said, “Lily hid and the Russian girl in charge, the Blockova, let her stay
there because she sang arias so beautifully…She wandered from one block to another,
singing her arias to obtain right of asylum.”33 Occasionally, singers would travel into
different blocks to give solo concerts in exchange for bits of bread, food, or other rewards, as
remembered by the Jewish prisoner of Birkenau, Sam Goldberg.34 Before the establishment
of the women’s orchestra, Alma Rosé resided in Block 10, the doctor’s experimental block,
and while there, Rosé played the violin every night after the barrack doors were locked. The
condiments, basically anything the heart desired.
32
Elisabeth Lichtenstein, WL, Eyewitness Testimony P.IIIh. No. III6 as quoted in Gilbert, 149.
33
Gisella Perl, I was a Doctor in Auschwitz (New York: International Universities Press, 1948), 102.
34
Gilbert, 149-150.
18
spontaneous nights of music led to regular cabarets where the women danced, recited poetry,
sang, and listened to Rosé play the violin. Word about the cabarets spread, and soon Block
10 received SS officer visitations to enjoy the music and have a diversion from camp life.35
The commandant over the female camp, Maria Mandel, heard Rosé’s beautiful playing and
elected her to help organize the women’s orchestra for Birkenau.
The primary function of both the men’s and women’s orchestras was to play outside
at the main gate for the morning and evening work detachments leaving for and returning
from their day’s labor.36 They were responsible for creating a steady beat to which the
prisoners could march in organized lines. In June 1943, the women’s orchestra began to play
twice per week for the patients in the hospital block known as the Revier to provide a
distraction and entertainment for the sick and ailing prisoners. When the weather permitted,
Rosé and the orchestra played just outside the Revier on a grassy patch, and when the
weather was unbearable the concert was moved indoors.
Both orchestras performed Sunday afternoon concerts. The women’s concerts were
held either in the square in front of the music block or in the interior of the Sauna, whereas
the men usually performed outdoors. Occasionally, musicians from both orchestras were
summoned to perform in the private quarters of their respective camp officials or VIPs; in
exchange, the musicians were rewarded with food and cigarettes.37
MUSICAL GROUPS
The harsh reality and strict schedule of the prisoners of Auschwitz inhibited the
development of musical groups other than the Nazi designated orchestras known as
Lagerkapellen. Prisoners were subject to a demanding regimen with endless morning and
evening roll calls, forced labor that could last up to 12 hours, camp chores, scheduled
bathroom breaks, and occasional group showers. Their unyielding schedule, along with the
constant deprivation of food and basic life necessities, left prisoners with little desire to
participate in musical or cultural activities. In addition to the lack of energy prisoners had for
extracurricular activities, the Germans also designed living arrangements that destroyed
35
Newman and Kirtley, 224.
36
Fénelon and Routier, 46-47; Lasker-Wallfisch, 76; Newman and Kirtley, 230.
37
Laks, 55-56; Newman and Kirtley, 264.
19
cohesiveness and usually separated prisoners of the same nationality or political affiliation.
The SS wanted to reduce the homogeneous groupings within Auschwitz so as to restrict the
opportunity for collaboration among the prisoners. The high mortality rate, prisoner transfers
of work contingents, and the constant selections also made it difficult to create support
groups within individual barracks.38 The two musical groups that survived in Auschwitz were
the orchestras whose purpose was to assist the Germans in organized marching to and from
work assignments.
The task of recruiting musicians was difficult because the Nazis stripped as much of
the individuality out of the prisoners as possible and left them with the same clothes,
hairstyle, and shoes. Their names were replaced with numbers that were tattooed on their
forearms, and they lived in similar barracks with the same harsh conditions. To find
musicians, camp authorities placed ads in barracks requesting non-Jewish musicians to come
forward to join the orchestra. In May 1943, the request for musicians extended to Jews of
German descent and eventually allowed for any prisoner to participate pending their ability.
Recruitment of musicians was a continual process due to the mortality rate and temporary
leaves of absence of musicians to the hospital. At the height, the women’s orchestra had 45 to
50 musicians, while the men boasted approximately 40 players.39
NAZI POLICY ON MUSIC
In both orchestras, there were initially restrictions on Jewish musicians from being
accepted into the music block, and even after the regulations allowed for Jews to participate,
SS officers were watchful of the ratio of Jews to Poles that conductors accepted into the
group. Dr. Mancy recalls a situation when an officer made inquiries on behalf of a Polish
violinist: “‘Why did you turn away a Polish violinist?’ shouted the overseer. ‘Because she
isn’t musical and doesn’t play the violin well,’ replied Alma. ‘You lie,’ said the SS. ‘It is
because she is not a Jewess. Now you take her in the band.’ ‘As you command,’ answered
Alma.”40
38
Gilbert, 146-148.
39
Ibid., 179.
40
Newman and Kirtley, 282.
20
The Nazis forbade the playing of all Jewish and Polish music by the orchestra, and
preferred that all songs were sung in German. Even though there was a ban on music written
by Jews, occasionally the women’s orchestra played the outlawed music, as is evidenced by
their playing of Josef, Josef, a popular fox trot of the time, and Mendelssohn’s E-minor
Violin Concerto.41 Fania Fénelon recalled how sweet it was to watch the Nazi officers sit in
enjoyment as they listened to the concerto by Mendelssohn, a composer banned in Germany
and occupied countries. Fénelon remarks, “And each time she [Rosé] played and conducted
it, we exchanged a smile of complicity. We were running a real risk; but it afforded us such
intense delight to see them beaming as they listened to that forbidden music. Such moments
were all too short.”42
The men had similar moments of rebellion. Heinrich Bischop, a regular SS guest to
the men’s music block, often requested that the orchestra play Jewish music for his
enjoyment. The men would play and have one member of the band at the door in order to
warn the group if another officer came within hearing distance of the barrack. Superiors
caught wind of Bischop’s unusual taste in music and he vanished from the camp.43 Music
copyists and arrangers would occasionally arrange a piece of Polish music and the orchestra
was trained to immediately start playing another song decided in advance if an intruder came
to visit.44
MUSICIANS’ STATUS
The orchestral members of the women and men’s orchestras lived in what ordinary
prisoners would regard as privileged conditions, but even with their added luxuries camp
living was unbearably harsh. In considering the special treatment for musicians, one cannot
forget that the terms “luxury” and “privilege” were relative to living conditions of the vast
majority of inmates, and are certainly not terms modern society would use to describe the
horrific and deadly conditions the musicians endured.
41
Ibid., 247, 263.
42
Fénelon and Routier, 125.
43
Laks, 72.
44
Ibid., 64.
21
In describing the moment when Szymon Laks was discovered as a capable musician,
Laks records the reaction of an SS officer who said, “And if you’re accepted [to the
orchestra], maybe you’ll live a little longer, ha, ha, ha!”45 It was known throughout the camp
that orchestral members enjoyed minor advantages, but German officers still intended on
subjecting their favorite musicians to their plans to cleanse Germany of impurity.
Commandants often gave special treatment to the musicians because a good orchestra
could elevate the leaders’ reputation. Privileges enjoyed by the musicians included mattress
pads, sheets, woolen blankets, use of a private latrine, daily showers, double portion of soup
and extra bread, and the use of socks and underwear. Alma Rosé, on account of her
musicianship, was granted almost everything she requested with the aid of the camp
commandant, Maria Mandel. Rosé acquired an iron stove for the music block after she
petitioned for one in order to keep the instruments stored in a constant temperature, allowing
them to stay in tune. Rosé also requested and was granted that in severe weather conditions
the violinists be excused from the outdoor marches of work detachments in order to preserve
the stringed instruments. Rosé’s girls were exempt from daily labor so that they could
adequately rehearse new marches and music for Sunday performances. Fénelon describes the
moment she walked into the music block for the first time:
I entered something resembling paradise. There was light, and a stove; indeed it
was so warm that I could hardly breathe and stood rooted to the spot. Stands,
music, a woman on a platform. In front of me pretty girls were sitting, welldressed, with pleated skirts and jerseys, holding musical instruments: violins,
mandolins, guitars, flutes, pipes…and a grand piano lording it over them all.46
The men’s orchestral members, unlike the women, were attached to a labor
contingent, but Szymon Laks requested and was finally granted that his musicians perform
easier labor during the day to preserve their energy and agility of the hands and fingers they
needed to play effectively. Laks, on occasion, was able to convince superiors to relieve the
male musicians from playing for the work detachments in severe weather solely for the
reason of protecting the instruments and not the musicians. Along with small privileges of
45
Ibid., 32.
46
Fénelon and Routier, 26.
22
work exemption, the men’s music block was organized from top to bottom with comforts to
which most prisoners did not have access.47
NAZIS’ USE OF MUSIC
Music was an integral part of German life and history, so it’s no surprise that German
commandants felt a good camp orchestra could improve their reputation and advance their
career. Nazis wanted to use the orchestra to gain respect for their leadership skills. In Alma
Rosé: Vienna to Auschwitz Newman states, “Maria Mandel, aware of the prestige the men’s
orchestras conferred on their SS sponsors, conceived of a women’s orchestra chiefly as a
means of furthering her own career.”48 The orchestras were known as Lagerkapellen, or
camp bands, and in addition to bringing esteem to leaders, the orchestras were used for the
daily work commandos leaving and returning from camp. The steady beat of the music
allowed for organized lines of five prisoners to be counted easily by their Kapos as well as
setting a pace for the massive group.49 Fania Fénelon discusses how the musicians felt about
playing for the commandos: “They, who had so much difficulty even in moving, were
required to give their steps a military gait. And, painfully, I realized that we were there to
hasten their martyrdom. One, two…one, two…Alma’s baton set the pace for the endless
march past.”50
Unusual to the regular procedure in Auschwitz, a transfer unit arrived from Terezín in
September 1943 that was exempt from the initial selections of life and death, and were able
to live in family units in separate quarters of Birkenau. Their heads were not shaved, they had
freedom to establish their own kindergarten and school, and they were even able to hold their
own cultural and musical events. This transfer became known as the Familienlager (family
camp). It later became known that the Red Cross had scheduled a visit to Birkenau, and in
order to deceive the world of the reality of the camp, they staged a more humane and free
quarter. The encouragement to perform music freely added to the façade that the SS
47
Laks, 90.
48
Newman and Kirtley, 229.
49
Kitty Hart, I am Alive (London: Abelard-Schuman, 1961), 53; Laks, 44.
50
Fénelon and Routier, 47.
23
desperately attempted to create. Once the threat of a visit from the Red Cross subsided, the
family camp was sent to their deaths in the Birkenau gas chambers.51
Many survivors of Auschwitz remembered the presence of the camp orchestra at the
main gate upon their arrival, leading them to believe that things couldn’t be too bad if there
was music playing. The argument is made that Nazi officials purposefully requested music to
be played while transports arrived to create a calm and collected atmosphere so authorities
could make “selections” without resistance and chaos.52
Finally, the Nazis used music for their entertainment. The SS officers often would
find refuge from their daily tasks and worries in the music block of the orchestras, listening
to the music they loved, or they would summon several musicians to their living quarters to
provide solo concerts.53
51
Newman and Kirtley, 258.
52
Gilbert, 178.
53
Gilbert, 160; Newman and Kirtley, 266; Fénelon and Routier, 55, 62; Laks, 120.
24
CHAPTER 3
TEREZÍN
Nazis transformed Terezín, once a garrison town, into a concentration camp for the
Jews in autumn of 1941 after the successful obtainment of the town. The Germans
confiscated the property of the Jews who had previously lived there, forced them into the
barracks, and sent “Aryans” out of the newly occupied territory. Each Jew could select
110 pounds of possessions to take with them to their new living arrangement, and all other
belongings were confiscated by the Reich, who considered this process a collection for the
“Fund for Jewish Emigration.”54 At 4:30 a.m. on 24 November 1941, the first transport of
342 men arrived in Terezín forming the first Aufbaukommando (construction command) that
consisted of artisans and carpenters, whose purpose was to prepare the camp for future
arrivals. German officers asked for volunteers, falsely promising a destination of warmth,
paid work, and most importantly the safety of their families from deportations to Poland.
Once the group of volunteers arrived in Terezín, their hopes were crushed as the reality of
imprisonment and forced labor became obvious.
After the arrival of the second Aufbaukommando, German authorities set up an
administration system consisting of Jews who were previously politicians or influential
leaders before their detainment. The Jewish administration was comprised of the Council of
Elders, as well as room elders in charge of all personages housed in a particular room, group
elders who supervised a collection of rooms, barrack elders in charge of one barrack, and the
central buildings authority, who supervised a collection of barracks. The head of the Council
of Elders consisted of 21 specialists including Jakub Edelstein, a former diplomat; Otto
Zucker, a deputy and a civil engineer; Ing Gruenberger, also a civil engineer; Era Kohn, a
talented young architect; and others. Most of the administration duties were divided among
the first transports of Aufbaukommandos I and II, although as populations increased, the
54
Zdenek Lederer, Ghetto Theresienstadt (New York: Howard Fertig, Inc., 1983), 12.
25
internal affairs had to expand and newcomers were given public service positions.55 The
Council had many responsibilities, including the distribution of food, the allocation of work,
housing, and regulating deportations. Serving as the liaison between the governing body of
Germans and the prisoners, the Council had the complicated task to obey orders from
superiors that often would hasten the suffering of their fellow prisoners. Germans expected
that their orders, when given to the Council, would be carried out with efficiency and
diligence, while ordinary prisoners expected their compatriots to show leniency and mercy.
Oftentimes, Germans would request a certain number of individuals for future transports, and
the Council would have to comply. Measures were taken to negotiate terms and numbers of
those leaving for transports, but Germans, with the final aim in mind, were not willing to
budge.
With the Council presiding over the affairs of the camp, a social structure emerged
that was comparable to a pyramid society composed of many different layers. The aged and
sick were the lowest level and they received the lowest rations. They were housed in the
worst accommodations, such as abandoned cafés or attics. Social position was determined by
an individual’s connections to the outside world, employment circumstances, education, or
anything that might give one bartering power. Instead of a paper monetary system with coins
and bills representing payment, necessities such as food, laundry vouchers, cigarettes, or
personal items became important for the acquisition of goods. The author of Ghetto
Theresienstadt, Zdenek Lederer, writes, “The Ghetto emerged as a community with a
powerful bureaucratic ruling class, a middle class composed of merchants, cooks, agricultural
workers, butchers, craftsmen, etc., and finally menial workers engaged on tasks offering no
rewards.”56
The structure of Terezín was different from all the other operating concentration
camps and ghettos because it gained the reputation among Germans to be the model, whose
purpose was to deceive the world of the real persecutions Jews endured while incarcerated.
German officers filled stores with goods on the days of inspection, purposefully set up
pseudo-governmental positions under the Jewish Council to mislead individuals to believe
55
Norbert Troller, Theresienstadt (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 38.
56
Lederer, 37.
26
that the prisoners were a self-sufficient operation, and filmed a propaganda film that used
well-dressed prisoners to serve as actors and actresses for the film.
REPERTOIRE
Terezín is known for the variety of genres and expansive repertoire that it embraced
during the war years, including choral, vocal, opera, chamber and orchestral, and solo music.
There was a large number of professional musicians and talented amateur musicians that took
residence in Terezín. One important figure that shaped the musical fabric of Terezín was
Rafael Schächter.
Schächter made an impact in many genres that emerged in the camp, but was
primarily noticed for his work in opera and in the production of Verdi’s Requiem.
Simultaneously conducting and accompanying on the piano, Schächter premiered the first
opera in Terezín, in November 1942: The Bartered Bride, by Czech composer Bedřich
Smetana. The cast included Truda Borger as Marenka, Franta Weissenstein as Jenik, Bedrich
Borges as Kecal, Jakob Goldring as Vasek, Karel Polak, Hedda Grab-Kernmayr, Walter
Windholz, Marta Tamara-Zucker, and others in supporting roles.57 The opera had such great
reviews that it was performed over 35 times. A 13-year-old girl, after hearing one
performance of the opera, writes in her journal, “We went to the gymnasium, L417, filled to
the last space. I found a spot next to the piano. I have heard The Bartered Bride three times in
Prague, but it was never so beautiful as here. It is indeed a miracle that conductor Schächter
was able to prepare it like that.”58 Egon Redlich, another pleased witness, reported in his
journal that, “this performance was the finest one that I have ever seen at the ghetto.”59
Following the successful run of The Bartered Bride, Schächter produced another Smetana
opera, The Kiss (Hubicka), in July 1943. The young bass singer Karel Berman joined the cast
and recalled singing in the opera around 15 times.60 Schächter also conducted the Mozart
operas The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute. There were two notable additions to the
57
Joža Karas, Music in Terezín 1941-1945 (New York: Beaufort Books Publishers, 1985), 24.
58
Ibid., 24.
59
Gonda Redlich, The Terezín Diary of Gonda Redlich, ed. Saul S. Friedman, trans. Laurence Kutler
(Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1992), 86.
60
Karas, 27.
27
cast, including the Netherlands Royal Opera lyric tenor Machiel Gobets and famous
coloratura Ada Hecht. The only opera that was fully staged and accompanied by orchestra
and continuo was the last of Schächter’s operatic endeavors, La Serva Padrona by Giovanni
Battista Pergolesi. There are conflicting reports on who played the continuo: Karl Berman
strongly suggests that it was played by Schächter on the piano but there is a surviving poster
that advertises Hans Krása as cembalist. The stage sets were designed by Frasntisek Zelenka
and stage directed by Karl Berman.
Another prominent musician who followed Schächter’s lead in conducting opera in
Terezín was Franz Eugen Klein. Klein was previously employed as the second conductor
(Kappelmeister) of the Viennese State Opera, and following his personal deportation to
Terezín became an influential musician among prisoners. Klein conducted three major operas
in Terezín, including Verdi’s Rigoletto, Puccini’s Tosca, and Bizet’s Carmen. Otto Abeles
writes to his sweetheart Bohuslava Dostálová:
As to my work here, I am always engaged in Rigoletto-it will be performed for
the fourth time now. In a fortnight, there will be the first night of Tosca in which I
have got but a small role-but never mind. Afterwards I’ll sing or, better, study the
part of the Comtur in Mozart’s Don Giovanni-which, I hope, will suit me
perfectly. I have plenty of work now: next week I have on my program the short
but very gratifying part of the Count Monterone in Rigoletto, afterwards the role
of the fretful gardener in The Marriage of Figaro, and still another in the Toscathe one of Cesare Angelotti, small but significant. In addition to all that, I am
preparing my own recital of songs and ballads, and precisely Löwe’s Archibald
Douglas and some lieder by Schubert and Schumann. This all shall be in about six
to eight weeks…Darling, I must say that now we are working hard at the music
here. Imagine-we are preparing The Bartered Bride, even with all the chorus
numbers. I am singing Father Krusina. It will be lovely-what a great pity that you
cannot be here! My soul is missing you so much at such moments, how much
lovelier it would be if I could see you listening to my singing and sharing with me
the delight in these divine strains!61
Carmen was first produced in 1944 and the orchestral accompaniment was replaced with two
pianists, Edith Steine-Kraus and Franz Eugen Klein. The fully staged Carmen had an
enthusiastic response from the public, as well as from Viktor Ullmann, a well-known music
critic in Terezín.
61
Ibid., 29.
28
There were two other contributing operatic conductors in Terezín, Karl Fischer and
Karel Berman. Fischer conducted a concert version of Cavalleria Rusticana by Pietro
Mascagni and Verdi’s Aida, while Berman chose to conduct a one-act comic opera by a
Czech composer, Vilèm Blodek, entitled In the Well. Berman faced a huge setback when,
according to him, one Monday afternoon an announcement was made that all public
utterances would have to be in German starting on the following Thursday, threatening the
performance of the Czech opera. The ensemble worked around the clock to finish their
preparations so they would be able to perform the opera at least once before the ban took
effect. After several full days of work, they performed In the Well successfully. Children
performed the opera Bastien and Bastienne by Mozart around 30 times under the baton of
Hans Jochowitz and accompanied by a string quartet. The greatest operatic event in Terezín
was the children’s production of Brundibár by Hans Krása, conducted by Rudolf
Freudenfeld, which was performed around 55 times.62
The early choral and vocal activities within the camp were spontaneous in nature and
were not well documented, but as the infrastructure of the camp coalesced, so did the cultural
activities. The first organized vocal concert was on 11 June 1942 and included arias by
Puccini, Meyerbeer, Bizet, Smetana, and Dvořák. The first program did not include
accompaniment, but 14 days following the initial performance the concert was repeated and
Wolfi Lederer accompanied the singers on the accordion.63 Karl Berman organized a
women’s chorus that which favored music by Czech composers, including Dvořák’s
Moravian Duets. Rudolf Freudenfeld was affiliated with a children’s choir in a Jewish
orphanage in Prague before being imprisoned in Terezín. Freudenfeld continued his work
with the children’s choir after he found that most of his orphans had relocated to Terezín.
Willi Durra formed a popular, first-rate choir and arranged performances of folk songs,
usually accompanied by a lute or harmonium. A small group of about ten men was organized
under the leadership of Karel Vrba and focused their repertoire on folk songs that he
arranged. Along with music for entertainment, religious music was performed mainly by two
62
Ament, 390.
63
Karas, 19.
29
groups: the Subak Chorus specializing in Jewish liturgical music, and the Tempel Chor
whose main function was to participate in religious service.64
The greatest musical achievement in Terezín was the production of Verdi’s Roman
Catholic funeral Mass, the Requiem, intended for four soloists, a double choir, and full
orchestra. The preparations for the Requiem met challenges, as transports east took key
soloists and musicians. At one point, almost the entire orchestra was transported to
Auschwitz, which necessitated the task of replacing those musicians.65 Regardless of the
setbacks, Rafael Schächter and his ensemble totaling around 150 musicians performed
Verdi’s masterpiece 16 times, the last of which was for the international Red Cross visitors.
Solo recitals were also a popular means of musical expression in Terezín, likely
because recitals demanded just a few instruments, less organized practice, and the limited
need for musical scores. Pianists Bernard Kaff, Edith Steiner-Kraus, Alice Herz-Sommer,
Renée Gärtner-Geiringer, Karel Fröhlich, and Rafael Schächter were the most featured
pianists that took up the stage in more than a 150 recitals combined. Kaff performed in solo
piano recitals four times playing works of Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, and Pavel Haas. In one
recital, Kaff collaborated with Karel Frölich in a performance of Beethoven’s Kreutzer
Sonata and Sonata in A Major by César Franck. Edith Steiner-Kraus was scheduled on a
transport east, but another Terezín inmate suggested that she try to use her talent to evade the
dreaded trip. Kraus had to rely solely on her memory for the performance as she didn’t have
access to musical scores to assist her preparations, but she was able to perform an impressive
program that included Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Major, Mozart’s Sonata in B-flat
major, five Intermezzi and Capricii by Brahms, Chopin’s Nocturne and Ballade, and two
concert polkas by Smetana. Following the successful program, the decision to take Kraus’s
name off the transport list was made and Kraus officially joined the blossoming musical
scene, becoming one of the busiest pianists in Terezín.66 Steiner-Kraus arranged several
concerts that featured an individual composer, including an all-Bach recital that was repeated
approximately ten times and an evening of music by Franz Schubert. Kraus was joined by
64
Ibid., 25.
65
Ament, 391.
66
Karas, 47-49.
30
singers Karel Berman and Marion Podolier in the Schubert concert. Alice Herz-Sommer, best
friend to Edith Steiner-Kraus, also became a popular pianist in Terezín, performing in over a
hundred concerts. Herz-Sommer’s repertoire included sonatas by Beethoven, compositions
by Schumann, Brahms, Smetana, Debussy, Viktor Ullmann, and the 24 Études of Frédéric
Chopin. The critic Viktor Ullmann called her “the friend of Beethoven, Schumann, and
Chopin,” and expressed words of thanks on behalf of the Terezín audiences for “many
delightful hours.”67 Renée Gärtner-Geiringer, another prominent pianist in Terezín, played in
over 30 concerts with four different programs, including compositions by Bach, Schumann,
Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, Franck, Beethoven, Brahms, and Haydn.68 Gärtner-Geiringer
performed in a crowded concert in town hall with a program that consisted of César Franck’s
Praeludium, Johann Sebastian Bach’s Italian Concert, and the Moonlight Sonata by
Beethoven.69 There were also recitals that featured other instruments, including a
performance of Haydn’s Oboe Concerto played by Armin Tiroler from Vienna. A
collaborative effort of Margarete Merzbach, Eduard Fried, Magister Pick, and Alfred Loewy
created another evening of Schubert, complete with a lecture on Schubert’s life, hymns, and
improvised Schubert melodies on a small reed organ.70 Additionally, tenor Karel Frölich and
harmonium player Wolfgang Lederer gave an exceptional recital including Violin Concerto
in D minor by Giuseppe Tartini, Sonata in G minor by J. S. Bach, Antonín Dvořák’s Violin
Concerto in A minor, Caprice No. 13 by Niccolò Paganini, Paul Kirman’s Chanson
Palestinienne, and Pablo de Saraste’s Zigeunerweisen.71
Chamber music secured a favorable reception among Terezín inmates and offered
entertainment for many. Initially, small chamber recitals took place in the private quarters of
high-ranking officials, but eventually they expanded their audience, and musicians formed
trios, quartets, and quintets. The first string quartet in the camp was called the “Doctors’
Quartet” comprised of the violinist Egon Ledeč (the previous associate concertmaster of the
67
Ibid., 49.
68
Ibid., 50.
69
Phillipp Manes, As if it were Life: A WWII Diary from the Theresienstadt Ghetto, ed. Ben Barkow and
Klaus Leist, trans. Janet Foster, Ben Barkow, and Klaus Leist (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 162.
70
Ibid., 132.
71
Karas, 51.
31
Czech Philharmonic in Prague), Dr. Ilona Král, the cellist Dr. Erich Klapp, and violinist
Viktor Kohn. The Doctors Quartet performed in Dr. Klapp’s apartment each week with
quartet music composed by Haydn, Beethoven, and Dvořák.
Along with the work of old masters, Terezín heard newly composed music by several
resident composers, most notably Gideon Klein, Pavel Haas, Viktor Ullman, Jan Krasa, and
Franz Eugen Klein.
INSTRUMENTS
Outside of Terezín, Jews were forbidden to possess musical instruments and were
often robbed and raided of their valuables, but inside the camp, prisoners of all races were
allowed to have a certain amount of possessions, including instruments of all types. The
camp commandant and supervising authorities permitted the use and ownership of musical
instruments, but did not provide any opportunity or easy method in obtaining them. Many
instruments came into the hands of Terezín inmates by either smuggling them into camp
upon arrival, or working with friends and family living outside of the ghetto to purchase and
arrange transportation of them. The danger inherent in the efforts to obtain instruments did
not stop desperate musicians from risking punishment in order to acquire their beloved
instruments.72 Meisl was the first documented musician to organize and smuggle in an
instrument with the aid of his friends from the Prague Orchestra. His comrades purchased a
cello and secretly hid it in a deserted barn in the fields near Terezín, where Meisl recovered
it, and brought it successfully into the camp in a cart buried in a bundle of hay.73 Prisoners
were allowed to bring approximately 50 kilograms of their valuables with them on their
relocation to Terezín, and many musicians hid their instruments in their luggage in lieu of
food, clothing, and blankets. Karel Fröhlich brought in his violin and viola, and Kurt Maier
his accordion. There is a story of a cellist who dismantled his cello and brought all the
necessary tools with him so he could rebuild it upon entering the camp.74 The acquisition of
instruments relied on the smuggling efforts of prisoners, so most of the instruments in the
early years of Terezín were smaller to medium-sized instruments. There is one account of a
72
Josef Bor, The Terezín Requiem, trans. Edith Pargeter (New York: Knopf, 1963), 20.
73
Ibid., 20.
74
Karas, 13.
32
Jewish foreman who smuggled in three full-sized double basses into the ghetto in a train
from Germany.75
Terezín was an abandoned town, so people left behind some objects that either they
didn’t have room to take or they didn’t feel that transporting them was worthwhile. This led
to the discovery of abandoned instruments by previous inhabitants of the old town. The first
and probably most significant discovery was an old, decrepit baby grand piano without legs
found in a gymnasium hall called Sokolovna just outside of the city limits. The piano had to
be moved into the camp during the night, and was placed in the gymnasium of the school that
housed boys and was placed on crates.76 During performances, the piano had to be serviced
in between pieces by the piano tuner, Mr. Pick. The initial musical efforts in Terezín felt the
absence of a piano greatly, as solo instrumentalists had to perform either without
accompaniment or used the accordion as a substitute.77 Another important discovery was
when workers assigned to excavate in the cellars uncovered a hiding place of carefully
packaged instruments of a military band, including brass, woodwinds, big drum, and kettle
drums.78
Along with random findings, the elite leaders of the Council of Elders had the
privilege of living in their own rooms, and were able to bring from home more than the
allotted 50 kilograms. Otto Zucker, Erich Klapp, and Paul Eppstein took advantage of the
leniency given to the camp VIPs and brought in their violin, cello, and grand piano without
inquiry from their superiors. Once established, the officers of the Freizeitgestaltung, the
governing body over cultural activities, provided assistance in obtaining several pianos,
smaller instruments, and sheet music.79 Since there were limited pianos in Terezín, only the
best and most requested pianists were able to practice and were allotted specific times to
rehearse and prepare for upcoming recitals.80
75
Bor, 22-23.
76
Karas, 24, 43, 46-47; Bor, 21.
77
Karas, 51.
78
Bor, 21.
79
Karas, 43.
80
Ibid., 47.
33
Initially, the musical scene in Terezín was limited because of the lack of instruments,
but in time was expanded as musicians had access to many instruments, including violins,
violas, cellos, flutes, accordions, guitars, saxophones, banjos, harpsichords, pianos, oboes,
clarinets, bassoons, trumpets, french horns, double basses, and drums.81
VENUES
The residents of Terezín were divided by gender, but were relatively free to roam the
camp, which allowed for groups of individuals to meet in selected areas for informal and
formal concerts. Initially, music was heard from the private quarters of prisoners, but
eventually expanded to concert halls equipped with a stage and podium.
The earliest efforts in music came from the first and second Aufbaukommandos
transports where men, wanting a diversion from the horrible conditions in camp, spent their
evenings singing folk songs in the barracks. With the addition of each transport, cultural
activities expanded because of the increased number of resources and musicians. The second
Aufbaukommando brought in the first instruments, including a violin, viola, and an
accordion.82 Following the transport, the first documented concert took place in Hall Number
Five of the Sudeten barracks. While some musicians began their musical efforts in public
meeting halls, others played in their own living quarters in the barracks.83
Attics and basements became popular places for concerts. Rafael Schächter produced
the opera The Kiss by Smetana, which was premiered in the attic of the Dresden barracks.84
Schächter also petitioned the Freizeitgestaltung to assist in locating a rehearsal space, and
was able to secure a small room in the basement of the Sudeten barracks. Brundibár, in the
beginning, was rehearsed in the attic of Block L 417, which was originally a school before
being transformed into a home for boys. Brundibar premiered in September 1943 in the
basement of block L 410, and later in the month moved into the attic room of the Magdeburg
81
Ibid., 24, 38, 47, 65, 79, 119, 191.
82
Ibid., 13.
83
Jana Renée Friesová, Fortress of my Youth: Memoir of a Terezín Survivor, trans. Elinor Morrisby and
Ladislav Rosendorf (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), 141; Karas, 14.
84
Karas, 27.
34
Barracks. Hannelore Brenner, author of The Girls of Room 28: Friendship, Hope, and
Survival in Theresienstadt describes the first performance of Brundibár:
Late in the afternoon of September 23, 1943, throngs of people, young and old,
streamed into the attic room of the Magdeburg Barracks. The hundred or so chairs
were not nearly enough for an audience of at least three times that number. The
doors were thrown open and there were more people crowding outside. They all
wanted to be part of the extraordinary event that the children had been talking
about for weeks: the premiere of Brundibár, an opera performed by children, for
children.85
For the prominent residents in Terezín who had the luxury of living in their own
room, music was enjoyed in their private quarters. They would invite the best musicians,
interesting guests, and have an evening of entertainment. Dr. Klapp, who had both privilege
and interest in music, invited the first string quartet, known as the Doctors’ Quartet, regularly
into his apartment.86 These private musical events were small in scale in compared to the
activities that emerged following the organization of the Freizeitgestaltung.
Once the Freizeitgestaltung was established, public recital halls were available for
use. One of the concert grand pianos brought into Terezín from Prague was placed in the city
hall, making it a formal gathering place for musical events. There was a gala program
presented on 30 April 1944 to introduce the new recreation hall on West Street. Other public
sites included a pavilion in one of the parks in the Terezín square, a former school, an empty
auditorium, courtyards of the barracks, and on at least one occasion the hospital was turned
into a beautiful concert hall.
MUSICAL GROUPS
The musical landscape of Terezín was the most varied of all the concentration camps
under the Nazi regime. It boasted countless musical collaborations, including opera choruses,
orchestras, jazz and popular groups, choirs, children’s groups, string quartets, innumerable
recitals, and lectures on music.
Choral activities were easier to organize than other musical groups, because singers
carried their instrument with them and they could learn music by ear, so the choirs need for
85
Hannelore Brenner, The Girls of Room 28: Friendship, Hope, and Survival in Theresienstadt, trans.
John E. Woods and Shelley Frisch (New York: Schocken Books, 2009), 134-135.
86
Karas, 37-38.
35
musical scores and supplies was small. In the study of Verdi’s Requiem, Rafael Schächter
used only one score to prepare the entire 150-member chorus. The choral scene was well
developed in the early years of the camp, sporting Rafael Schächter’s mixed choir, several
children’s choirs, the Durra chorus, a religious choir known as the Tempel Chor designed to
participate in religious services, another choir that centered their repertoire around Jewish
literature, and a chorus that focused on oratorios.87
Rafael Schächter introduced organized choirs, whose members were expected to
rehearse and participate in performances following a full day’s work. Other musicians
followed the example of Schächter by forming other singing groups to accommodate their
interests in music. Karel Berman organized a women’s chorus that concentrated on Czech
compositions, specifically Dvořák’s Moravian Duets, and Karel Vrba focused primarily on
folk songs, occasionally arranged by Vrba himself, with his small choir of boys as well as a
ten-member male group.88 The Durra chorus was directed by Willi Durra, a member of the
auxiliary service of the ghetto watch, and provided many evenings of folk songs and solo
performances.89 Prior to his imprisonment, Rudolf Freudenfeld conducted a children’s choir
in a Jewish orphanage in Prague, where he premiered Schächter’s children’s opera,
Brundibár. After Freudenfeld’s arrival in camp, the transports began including children, and
the choir from Prague resumed its activities after almost the entire choir had been relocated
to Terezín.90
Chamber ensembles, especially string quartets, were popular in Terezín for a variety
of logistical reasons: first, it took less time to achieve performance readiness, because there
were only a few musicians; and second, the inherent size of the group required less space for
practice and recitals. Finding a venue to accommodate large orchestras and audiences was
extremely difficult due to the overcrowding issues that prisoners faced. The definitive count
of chamber ensembles cannot be numbered because there were so many musicians
collaborating to enrich life in Terezín, but some of the notable string quartets included the
87
Nick Strimple, Choral Music in the Twentieth Century (Portland: Amadeus Press, 2002), 109.
88
Karas, 25.
89
Manes, 110.
90
Karas, 25.
36
Doctors Quartet, Ledec Quartet, Terezín Quartet, and Karel Frölich’s Quartet. String
ensembles ranged from trios to sextets, which were constantly changing out musicians for
any number of reasons pertaining to the living conditions and risk of transports east.91
Karel Ancerl formed a string orchestra after the realization that there was an
abundance of stringed instruments and musicians, and was able to form respectable sections
of 16 first violins, 12 seconds, eight violas, six cellos, and one double bass, all of which were
men except the female bass player.92 The orchestra was organized under the auspices of the
Freizeitgestaltung, because they needed adequate rehearsal space and Ancerl knew that he
would not be able to conduct a large orchestra in secret. There were other orchestras and
smaller ensembles, but details of rehearsals, repertoire, and musicians are very limited. Even
though there were multiple ensembles, many of the instrumentalists employed through the
Freizeitgestaltung were considered full-time musicians, exempting them from other camp
responsibilities, and participated in several musical groups. Karel Fröhich, for example, was
in such demand that he served as the concertmaster in all the Terezín orchestras.93
The most expansive musical endeavor was the performance of Verdi’s Requiem,
conducted and organized by Rafael Schächter, with approximately 150 singers and piano
accompaniment. Schächter’s need to recruit was unending because of three major transports
east, two of which virtually devastated his full chorus. Finally, Schächter anticipated the loss
of musicians and reinforced the choir with reserves, so when the inevitable transfers or
disease took singers and soloists, musical progress would not be as strongly affected.94
Schächter was able to train the singers and rehearse the Requiem from just one score,
teaching by rote and accompanied by a battered and legless piano that stood on crates. The
successful performance of the Requiem is seen in Viktor Ullmann’s critique:
Rafael Schächter, to whom the Terezín musical life is indebted for so many
stimulations and artistic deeds, delivered a performance of a big-city
standard…The chorus not only sings precisely but also is dynamically well
controlled. The soloists stand to the conductor’s side, and in the shining soprano
of Podolier-especially in the higher register- the all around warm voice of
91
Ibid., 38-46.
92
Ibid., 65.
93
Ibid., 69.
94
Bor, 7, 40, 72.
37
Aronson-Lindt, the blooming tenor of Grünfeld, and the dark beautiful and deep
basso of Berman, they unite in a bel canto collaboration fascinating the
listeners…Thankfully we acknowledge the marvelous performance with Gideon
Klein at the piano….95
NAZI POLICY ON MUSIC
The concentration camp had its own internal administration that addressed the
problems prisoners faced, including hunger, housing, sanitary issues, transports, policing, and
healthcare. Jacob Edelstein, the liaison between the Jewish police and the SS command,
organized with Nazi approval the Freizeitgestaltung, Administration of Free Time
Activities). Although most of the logistical planning of musical events went through the
Freizeitgestaltung, musicians and performances were still subject to Nazi censorship.
Musicians were able to petition the Freizeitgestaltung for help in acquiring musical
instruments and scores as well as scheduling venues for recitals. The organization also served
as the ticketing center for popular concerts that had limited accommodations. Practice time
on the few pianos, which was limited to two hours, was scheduled through the
Freizeitgestaltung. Rafael Schächter was assisted by the Freizeitgestaltung in securing a
small room in the basement of the Sudeten barracks for his rehearsals of Verdi’s Requiem. In
1943 Eric Vogel wanted to start a jazz band, to be called Ghetto Swingers, and wrote a letter
to the Freizeitgestaltung to ask permission, which was granted.96 The Ghetto Swingers
played often in the café, but prisoners were only allowed to visit the café for a maximum of
two hours about once a year. Alfred Kantor in The Book of Alfred Kantor writes, “People sat
quietly with tears in their eyes while they listened to the music. For each of us it was two
hours of escape, of make-believe.”97
Surprisingly, there was a lack of rules dictating what types of musical productions
were allowed, but the musicians’ freedom was occasionally compromised when either the
Freizeitgestaltung or the Germans cancelled performances or made new rules that stopped
progress of certain performances. Karel Berman and his chorus were in the middle of
95
Karas, 140.
96
Michael Zwerin, La Tristesse de Saint Louis: Jazz Under the Nazis (New York: Beech Tree Books,
1985), 26.
97
Quoted in Ament, 392.
38
preparing the one-act comic opera In the Well, by Czech composer Vilèm Blodek, when the
announcement was made that in several days, German was the only language to be heard in
all public settings. Berman moved their performance date forward, and after two intense
rehearsal days the opera was successfully performed the night before the new rule was
enforced.98 On another occasion, it was the Council of Elders that intervened and cancelled
the show after the dress rehearsal of the cabaret The Last Cyclist, by Karl Švenk. The main
complaint was that the allegory boldly displayed the Nazis as persecutors and fools.99
MUSICIANS’ STATUS
Musicians were employed by the Freizeitgetstaltung and given the status of either a
part-time or full-time musician depending on their popularity and demand. Those officially
declared as performing or budding artists were exempt from manual labor and were granted
time to pursue musical endeavors. Popular musicians spent their time practicing and
rehearsing for concerts, as well as instructing promising amateurs. Budding musicians were
allotted time to study and rehearse, and composers were allowed time to write new music,
transcribe, and orchestrate.
Additionally, musicians were often saved, at least temporarily, from transports to the
east. Edith Steiner-Kraus survived the war, and her fate was determined by a performance
she gave in Terezín. Steiner-Kraus’s name appeared on a transport list to Auschwitz, and
after the suggestion of a friend, she organized a piano recital with hopes to evade the
transport. She did not have any sheet music at her disposal, yet she put together a remarkable
program. The recital was a success, Steiner-Kraus avoided deportation, and she remained in
Terezín as one of the busiest pianists.100
After the devastation of Rafael Schächter’s choir by a deportation to Auschwitz, he
arranged with the leaders to exclude musicians from all future transports. Schächter rebuilt
his choir and provided a list of participating singers and had the Jewish Chief Elder register
the entire company among the artists with exemption. The safety from transports did not
98
Karas, 43.
99
Ibid., 145.
100
Ibid., 47.
39
extend to family members of artists, and many musicians would volunteer for the transports
to remain with their loved ones.101
Because Terezín had a large pool of talent, not all musicians benefited from all the
privileges that were extended to them by the Freizeitgestalung. Many musicians maintained
an amateur status and could only participate in musical events in the evenings, following
their days work assignments.
NAZIS’ USE OF MUSIC
The two main Nazi uses of music in Terezín correlate perfectly with the primary
function of the model camp: deception. Music contributed to this endeavor by entertaining
Red Cross visitors with elaborate productions and musical offerings, and providing a
soundtrack to a propaganda film entitled Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt (Führer
donates a town to the Jews).
Rumors of the horrible treatment of the Jews in Nazi Germany were circulating
throughout the world, and following suspicious deportations, the Danish Red Cross and the
International Red Cross scheduled a visit in June of 1944 with the permission of the
Germans. Elaborate measures were taken to beautify the camp. The streets were literally
scrubbed clean, new paint was applied outside and inside houses and buildings in a selected
portion of the camp, window treatments were added, the third bunks in the barracks were
taken down, gardens were planted, and a pavilion for musical concerts was erected in the
main Terezín square.102 To solve the problem of overcrowding and clean up the face of
Terezín, Germans transported 7,500 old and sick prisoners to Auschwitz. The Nazis staged
social and cultural events to entertain their guests while hoping that the foreign examiners
would be impressed by the extravagant music and overlook signs of trouble. The children’s
opera Brundibár was performed, as well as concerts from the symphony orchestra in the
main square and the Ghetto Swingers staffed in the cafés.103 The Red Cross left feeling
uplifted by the music and put their suspicions to rest.
101
Bor, 32-43.
102
Karas, 153-155.
103
Zwerin, 27.
40
The second tool of deception was the propaganda film ordered by the Nazis with the
intention to show off the “idyllic” life of the Jews under their protection, while Germans
were struggling and fighting the war for their country. The film was ingeniously conceived
not only to assuage the concern for Jews’ safety, but also to generate contempt for them by
showing that they are living great at the cost of German lives. The film was staged with
seemingly happy, healthy citizens enjoying lectures, dancing, soccer, swimming, and music.
As Gonda Redlich writes in her diary, “They are making a film. Jewish actors, happy,
satisfied, happy faces in the film, only in the film.”104 Along with the tunes of workers, there
were scenes from the opera performance of Brundibár and people dancing to the music of the
Ghetto Swingers.105 The participants were rewarded initially with stolen packages, but their
usefulness ran its course and so did the thanks given them—eventually all but a few of the
musicians, actors, and film producers were sent to Auschwitz to be exterminated.
In several instances, the Germans found entertainment through the musical efforts of
the Jews, but it seems that attending the cafés and concerts were not normal occurrences. In
one of the only references to Germans frequenting a performance, Karas writes, “The cabaret
was very successful not only with the Jewish prisoners but with their Nazi keepers as
well.”106
Originally, musical performances were clandestine in nature without the sponsorship
of overseeing leaders or from the Nazis, but surprisingly, once they learned of the
performances, they did not forbid them. On 8 December 1941, the Nazis sanctioned the
Kameradschaftsabende, also known as the “evenings of fellowship.” The Germans seemed to
feel that the Jews’ freedom to participate in cultural events helped satisfy the prisoners, so
they would be less inclined to join forces in resistance. Music also occupied the prisoners’
free time, which limited the risk of an uprising.107 Joža Karas, in his book Music in Terezín
1941-1945, quotes a Nazi who said, “Let them have their fun; tomorrow they will no longer
exist.”108 The prisoners grew accustomed to the freedom they enjoyed, and Nazis used
104
Redlich, 83.
105
Karas, 154-155.
106
Ibid., 148.
107
Ament, 385; Karas, 14-18.
108
Karas, 18.
41
temporary suspensions from cultural activities and musical productions as punishment for
minor grievances and attempted escapes. All events, for example, were cancelled between
October 27 and November 2 of 1942 in the entire camp because of a successful escape by an
inmate.109
109
Ibid., 47.
42
CHAPTER 4
WARSAW
The Warsaw ghetto was not intended as a permanent fixture in the Nazi camp system.
It was primarily planned as a temporary gathering place and holding center for Jews until the
Germans could adequately build up extermination centers where Warsaw Jews would
eventually be transferred.110 Shirli Gilbert, author of Music in the Holocaust: Confronting
Life in the Nazi Ghettos and Camps, notes that “a directive issued by Reinhard Hydrich on
21 September 1939 regarding policy towards Jews in the occupied territories stated that the
first prerequisite for the fulfillment of the ‘final aim’ was concentrating Jews from the
countryside in the larger cities.”111 Potential ghetto sites needed to have access to a railway
station for transporting citizens to death camps when the Germans were ready to liquidate.
Warsaw was considered a perfect choice for a ghetto because it already boasted a large
Jewish population of approximately 360,000.112 The Jewish citizens of Warsaw organized
welfare, education, and religious institutions to care for the Jewish community. The official
announcement for the establishment of a ghetto in Warsaw came on 12 October 1940, but it
wasn’t until 16 November of the same year that the designated ghetto area was sealed off
from the remainder of Warsaw.
The Nazi occupation of Warsaw brought the closure of Jewish schools and
businesses. Bank accounts were frozen, and the Jews were forced to register their property.
With schools and businesses closed and personal funds unavailable, there was little
opportunity for Jews to make a living.113 The Germans reorganized the Jewish Community
Council’s leadership and responsibilities in Warsaw. The Council’s new leader, Adam
Czerniaków, would need to follow direct orders from the Germans. The Council was
110
Gilbert, 26.
111
Ibid., 26.
112
Emmanuel Ringelblum, Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto, trans. and ed. Jacob Sloan (New York:
McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1958), 3.
113
Ibid., 3.
43
responsible for the sanitation and health of the ghetto, supplying men for the required forced
labor detachments, policing the ghetto to maintain order, and managing the ghetto’s
resources.114
The Jewish population in Warsaw was diverse due to the migration of Jews from all
over Europe in the pre-war years. Following the establishment of the ghetto, refugees poured
into the city from surrounding territories as part of the German’s efforts to concentrate the
Jews. A well-defined social hierarchy emerged, including a higher class that received
relatively favored treatment, a middle working class, and the poor, which consisted of
refugees and displaced Jewish families. The Judenrat, the Jewish Police, and the skilled
workers employed outside of the ghetto were among the citizens who were considered
privileged in the Warsaw ghetto. Those inmates involved in the criminal activities within
Warsaw—which included smuggling, blackmailing, and black marketing—became some of
the most prosperous citizens. The powerful positions held by these individuals granted them
additional income to purchase food and shelter, guaranteed better paying jobs, exempted
them from forced labor, and temporarily secured their assigned station within Warsaw.
Describing a recent trip to Warsaw, Judenrat chairman Rumkowski of the Łódź ghetto said:
There is a striking contrast in the Warsaw ghetto between the tragic poverty of the
enormous majority of the people and the prosperity of the small handful who still
remain wealthy and have access to every sort of restaurant, pastry shop, and store,
where the prices are, of course, dizzyingly high. Aside from that “frippery” and
the small number of fortunate people who are dressed in the latest fashion and
perfectly well fed, one sees immense crowds of unemployed people whose
appearance is simply frightening.115
In contrast to the wealthy, a large portion of the population was unemployed and unable to
sustain themselves and their loved ones. Unemployment became rampant after the closure of
stores, schools, and Jewish-operated industries, causing many families to become homeless,
penniless, and starving.
Music as a social activity distinctly reflected the hierarchy and division among the
classes of prisoners.116 The musical activities that individuals participated in were directly
114
Ibid., 4.
115
Lucjan Dobroszycki, ed., The Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto, 1941-1944 (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1984), 58; quoted in Gilbert, 27-28.
116
Gilbert, 24-30.
44
dependent on their social rankings. The rich and powerful enjoyed access to the numerous
cafés, while the poorest and weakest citizens of Warsaw resorted to musical panhandling on
the streets to beg for money. Warsaw had a variety of cultural and musical outlets within
each of the social classes, including a ghetto orchestra, choirs, theater groups, instrumental
and vocal recitals, and café entertainment.
REPERTOIRE
In pre-war years, Warsaw had an extensive Jewish community complete with
institutions of welfare, education, and religion, as well as political parties, youth movements,
and sports organizations. Cultural life was flourishing when the Nazis assumed control and
banned community events. Underground cultural life began almost immediately following
the dismantling of the presiding leadership groups, and professional musicians found
themselves sharing the spotlight with budding amateurs. In response to the emergence of
amateur musical activities, a clandestine committee was developed by a group of interned
professionals to help regulate performances, ensure professionalism, and maintain a high
standard of music. The committee was very successful; it organized close to
2,000 performances and registered approximately 150 musicians.117 The musical atmosphere
grew from the shattered remains of the Jewish cultural centers closed down by the Nazis.
Musicians reformed their groups and secretly continued their pre-war musical efforts.118
Street performers relied on popular Jewish songs, which they played for money.
Often they would use Jewish melodies with rewritten lyrics to highlight topics exclusive to
the ghetto. Moes, moes (“Money, Money”), Hot’s mitlayd, hot’s rakhmones (“Have Pity,
have Compassion”), and Hot’s rakhmones, yidishe hertser (“Have Compassion, Jewish
Hearts”) were three songs that were recovered following the war and published in the
Kaczerginski and Leivick’s collection of ghetto songs, titled Lider fun di getos un lagern.119
The song Hot’s rahmones, yidishe hertser, written by the inmate Paulina Braun, contains the
following lyrics:
117
Ibid., 36.
118
Ibid., 25.
119
Ibid., 32-33.
45
Fenced in by walls, by wires,
The ghetto wrestles with death,
People are little more than shadows,
Twisted bones, dry flesh.
You see people running, making a racket in the streets,
Suddenly—you see a dead body.
Eyes shine out of a pale face,
And you hear a weak, quiet cry:
“Have compassion, Jewish hearts,
Give me something to eat, or some money;
Have compassion, Jewish hearts,
I still want to live, I still want to see the world!
So have compassion, Jewish hearts,
Throw down a piece of dry bread!
Have compassion, Jewish hearts,
Help a Jewish heart in need.”
From the bright morning until the stars at night
Stands a child with outstretched hand.
And even when you do not want to hear,—
Have compassion Keeps chasing you.
Death came suddenly in the ghetto,
There was a great rush towards it,
And in a city with people taken away,
There remains in the ghetto only the voice:
“Have compassion, Jewish hearts,
Four hungry mouths are waiting.
Have compassion, Jewish hearts,
I am a common man just like you!
Have compassion, Jewish hearts,
Warsaw was once great,
Have compassion, Jewish hearts”—
The voice will resound forever.
This is an example of the lyrics that permeated the streets of the Warsaw ghetto sung by
beggars and street performers in hopes of receiving a small payment in coins or bread.120
Although most of the street music heard within the ghetto walls was familiar, there were
120
Shmerke Kaczerginski, Lider fun di getos un lagern (New York: Altveltlekher Yidisher kulturKongres: Tsiko, 1948), 156-157; quoted in Gilbert, 33-34.
46
composers who wrote new music; in fact, 17 newly composed songs were recovered from
Warsaw following the war.121
In addition to the gains made in Jewish music, Jewish theater saw great success in the
early 1940s. From 1941 to 1942, the Warsaw ghetto fielded 38 performances in the five
known theaters.122 These theaters relied largely on the pre-existing repertoire of European
theater, including film music, American ragtime, cabaret, tangos, operettas, and musicals, but
also on some newly written musicals and skits that spoke of the sad conditions of the
ghetto.123 Topics of newly composed songs ranged from the problem of begging to the daily
horrors of the ghetto. Such performances included the plays Di Mazeldike khasene (“The
Lucky Wedding”), Dos Dorf Mod (“The Villiage Girl”), Tsipke fun Novolipye (“Tsipke from
Novolipye”), and Motke Ganev (“Motke the Thief”), as well as two operettas, Maritsa and
Tshardash.124 The Femina Theater hosted a variety of musical activities, including the
staging and performance of the operetta Baron Kimmel by Walter Kollo and the musical
comedy written by Jerzy Jurandot, Love Looks for an Apartment.125 Also popular was a revue
of satirical songs and skits about the Judenrat, the local Jewish government.126
Cafés were a source of entertainment for the elite and wealthy citizens of Warsaw.
Like many other venues, the café repertoire consisted of pre-war classical and contemporary
songs, but also became a forum for satires that refer to the conditions individuals faced in
Warsaw. Mary Berg, a young intern of the ghetto, writes in her diary: “Every day at the Art
Café on Leszno Street one can hear songs and satires on the police, the ambulance service,
the rickshaws, and even the Gestapo, in a veiled fashion. The typhus epidemic itself is the
subject of jokes. It is laughter through tears, but it is laughter.”127
121
Gilbert, 32-34.
122
Moshe Fass, “Theatrical Activities in the Polish Ghettos during the Years 1939-1942,” Jewish Social
Studies 38, no. 1 (1976): 70-71.
123
Mary Berg, The Diary of Mary Berg: Growing up in the Warsaw Ghetto, ed. S. L. Shneiderman
(Oxford: Oneworld, 1945), 104; Gilbert, 38.
124
Fass, 70-71, and see Fass appendix for a full list of the repertoire.
125
Berg, 101.
126
Ibid., 48.
127
Ibid., 104.
47
The Jewish Symphony Orchestra was one of the first musical institutions formed after
the official establishment of the Warsaw ghetto in late 1940. The program of the first concert
on 25 November 1940 included Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture, his Piano Concerto in E-flat
major, and Grieg’s Peer Gynt.128 There was a wealth of stringed instruments and musicians,
but assembling a full symphony orchestra had its difficulties, especially in the wind and horn
sections. Simon Pullmann, conductor of the orchestra for the majority of its existence,
initially concentrated on music emphasizing the string section, including works by Vivaldi,
Boccherini, Bach, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky’s C Major Serenade.129 The ghetto’s collection
of mostly incomplete musical scores, often missing individual instrumental parts, made it
difficult to expand the repertoire, but there were proficient musicians who were willing to
transcribe and arrange music for the orchestra. Theodor Reiss volunteered to arrange five of
Brahms’s waltzes for the orchestra. The symphony also played Haydn’s Surprise Symphony,
Mozart’s Symphony No. 40, Beethoven’s Eroica, Fifth, Seventh, and Pastoral Symphonies,
and his Great Fugue Op. 133, as well as the Adagio from Bruckner’s String Quintet, and
Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique.130 Most of the repertoire was rooted in the German tradition—
including Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Weber, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Schumann,
and Brahms—but Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, and Dvořák were also occasionally
performed. As Reich-Ranicki recalls, “everything was played that could be found, apart from
modern music. Everything but Chopin.”131 Occasionally, soloists would perform with the
orchestra, and it was on one such occasion that they invited Richard Spira to play
Beethoven’s Piano Concerto in E-flat major for his début performance.132
The inclusion of Aryan music continued until 15 April 1942, when the repertoire
suffered a sudden change following the prohibition of orchestra concerts. In a letter to the
Chairman of the Jews’ Council, the Germans banned future orchestral concerts for a period
128
Gilbert, 42.
129
Marcel Reich-Ranicki, The Author of Himself: The Life of Marcel Reich-Ranicki, trans. Ewald Osers
(London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001), 154.
130
Janina Bauman, Winter in the Morning: A Young Girl’s Life in the Warsaw Ghetto and Beyond 19391945 (New York: The Free Press, 1986), 53; Reich-Ranicki, 151-60.
131
Reich-Ranicki, 155.
132
Ibid., 156.
48
of two months when orchestra members were accused of playing unapproved works by
Aryan composers. The orchestra never fully recovered following this restrictive period, but it
prompted other groups to shift their repertoire from predominately German music to music
written only by Jewish composers. Music by Mendelssohn, Offenbach, Meyerbeer, and
Anton Rubinstein, as well as operettas by Paul Abraham, Leo Fall, and Emmerich Kalman
suddenly became popular and remained in the repertoire until the destruction of the ghetto.133
INSTRUMENTS
The instruments available to the citizens of Warsaw were the pre-war possessions of
the ghetto inmates and were moved into the Jewish quarters by the owners. Often, musical
instruments—especially pianos—were sold along with other valuable possessions in order to
receive money for the necessities of life; thus, not all musicians had access to the instrument
they could play. The well-known pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman was one who worked in the
evenings in the cafés, and in his memoir, The Pianist, he observes, “By the time the gates of
the ghetto closed in November 1940, my family had sold everything we could sell long ago,
even our most precious household possession, the piano.”134 Wealthier citizens had an
obvious advantage as they had both money and plenty of room to store and keep their prized
instruments.135
A wide variety of instruments could be heard on the street, being played either by
beggars or in private performances in individual quarters. Marcel Reich-Ranicki recalls:
Surprising sounds could now and then be heard—Beethoven’s violin concerto
from one backyard, Mozart’s clarinet concerto from another—both without
accompaniment. I still picture a white-haired woman playing an instrument one
would not have expected to see in a street in the ghetto: her head raised high, she
played something French on her harp, perhaps Debussy or Ravel.136
Mary Berg remembered a similar scene in the courtyard at 41 Sienna Street where Professor
Kellerman of the Leipzig Conservatory went to play the violin for money to support himself
133
Ibid., 160.
134
Wladyslaw Szpilman. The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man’s Survival in Warsaw,
1939-1945, trans. Anthea Bell (New York: Picador, 1999), 11.
135
Berg, 100.
136
Reich-Ranicki, 153.
49
and his wife.137 Stringed instruments—including violins, violas, cellos, and double basses—
were the most common during the Warsaw ghetto era, while woodwinds and horns were the
most challenging to find. During the organization of the Jewish Symphony Orchestra, Simon
Pullman had difficulty locating wind and horn musicians and resorted to advertisements
placed in newspapers and on notice boards to help with recruitment.138 Horn, oboe, and
bassoon players were desperately needed, but as no one came forward, alternative
replacement instruments became necessary. The oboe parts were played by clarinets, and the
bassoon melodies by bass saxophones. Reich-Ranicki recalls the solution for the horns as
“questionable,” as they were replaced by tenor saxophones.139 Although not ideal, the
substitutions allowed for an expanded repertoire and completed the sound the orchestra
desired.
VENUES
The Warsaw ghetto was a partitioned section of the busy city. It was equipped with
apartments, halls, libraries, auditoriums, theaters, and nightclubs, which all served as venues
for the growing musical life. Musicians claimed the previously established buildings in
Warsaw and transformed them into cultural centers where lectures, music, and theater could
be seen and heard.
Wealthy citizens of Warsaw enjoyed musical entertainment in the numerous cafés
and clubs around town. The cafés were places of refuge where the upper class could relax
and lose themselves in the glutinous and amusing atmosphere, while those who worked in
and owned the cafés found financial relief from the proceeds. As Chaim A. Kaplan argues:
Man’s nature is such that in times of crisis the urge to ‘eat, drink, and be merry’ is
most powerful. Such people, feeling they ‘may as well be hanged for a sheep as
for a lamb,’ are in constant pursuit of pleasure. For them an abundance of
everything is available…Places of entertainment function in the ghetto, and they
are full to overflowing every evening.140
137
Berg, 62-63.
138
Reich-Ranicki, 153.
139
Ibid., 153.
140
Chaim A. Kaplan, Scroll of Agony: The Warsaw Diary of Chaim A. Kaplan, trans. and ed. Abraham I.
Katsh (New York: Collier Books, 1965), 290-291.
50
As the first cafés proved successful, other entrepreneurs seeking sufficient income followed
suit, and it became such a popular business pursuit that “every second house became a
premise [“café” or restaurant].”141 After the explosion of cafés and nightclubs all over town,
Leszno Street became known as the Broadway of Warsaw, and the night spots totaled an
impressive 61.142 Former inmate Ya’akov Tselemensky describes the café scene:
When we reached the nightclub the street was dark…When I opened the door the
light blinded me. Gas lamps were burning in every corner of the crowded cabaret.
Every table was covered by a white tablecloth. Fat characters sat at them eating
chicken, duck, or fowl. All of these foods would be drowned in wine and liquor.
The orchestra, in the middle of the nightclub, sat on a small platform. Next to it a
singer performed…Within the walls of the cabaret one could not sense the tragedy
taking place a few yards away. The audience ate, drank and laughed as if it had no
worries.143
Musicians were hired to perform in the cafés and were able to earn enough to support
themselves and their families during the war years. As Wladyslaw Szpilman states,
…the café was frequented by the rich, who went there hung about with gold
jewelry and dripping with diamonds. To the sound of popping champagne corks,
tarts with gaudy make-up offered their services to war profiteers seated at laden
tables. I lost two illusions here: my beliefs in our general solidarity and in the
musicality of the Jews.144
In addition to the numerous cafés, five professional theaters operated in the ghetto.
The first, the Eldorado, opened just two months after the official ghetto boundaries were
defined by the erection of the wall. The Nowy Azazel and the Polish theater, Na Piaterku
(“The Upstairs”), were both opened about a year and a half later in May 1941, and the final
two theaters, the Femina and the Nowa Kameralni (“The New Room”), opened their doors in
the summer of 1941. The Femina Theater, previously the Femina Cinema, was transformed
into a theater and became the popular venue for the Jewish Symphony Orchestra because it
was considered a modern venue, capable of holding an audience of 900.145
141
Fass, 55.
142
Kaplan, 291; Ringelblum, 146; Gilbert, 28; Fass, 56.
143
Fass, 57-58.
144
Szpilman, 13.
145
Gilbert, 43.
51
Less expensive entertainment in the soup kitchens and smaller halls was available for
the poorer citizens of Warsaw. These venues usually hosted solo and chamber concerts
because of the limited space for musicians and audiences. The soup kitchens became a
cultural center for educational pursuits and regularly held lectures and discussions, vocal
recitals, choral singing, and chamber music. Because of the low cost of the tickets, even less
expensive than a piece of bread, the performances were seen by a larger and more varied
audience.146 Unfortunately, the soup kitchens were more susceptible to the elements because
they were bare-boned buildings that had little or no access to heating and cooling systems.147
Outside courtyards and street corners were popular locations for struggling musicians
who turned to begging to support themselves. Beggars flooded the streets with desperate
melodies and pleas for compassion from the wealthy. The melodies were sung by instruments
of every kind as well as voices young and old—anything to catch the attention and sympathy
of others. Henryka Łazowertówna describes the daily scene outside her window:
[In the morning] a swollen beggar woman howls outside the window: ‘Good
people, 5 groszy, only 5 groszy.’ A moment ago, there was an accompaniment of
two new voices. I know them. It is two children. They sing a strange song…I
already know who else will ‘produce’ today. There will be the boy whining for
hours in one place, ‘Oc rachmunes…’ “Give Alms”, and the girl with ‘Oc
myclajch…’ “Have Pity”, and something small, of unidentifiable sex, with its
‘Warf a rup a sztykełe brojt’ “Throw Down a Bit of Bread”…And later, after the
street gate has been closed, some terribly twisted, crippled boy…And later in the
night and at nine o’clock in the morning it will be ‘Miss Marysia.’ Miss Marysia
is twenty-five years old and is said to have a graduation certificate. She has a
pure, clear, pleasant alto voice. She has an old mother and a tiny little flat
somewhere nearby. Aside from this she has had nothing at all—only swollen legs
and somewhat addled wits—for the past six months.148
Along with the music from the beggars, small musical groups and street orchestras used the
free admission of streets to perform, especially in the warmer months of the year. Jonas
Turkow, a survivor of Warsaw, recalls, “In the summertime there was a flood of ‘summergardens’ where musicians and actors performed.”149
146
See Gilbert, 45; Barbara Engelking and Jacek Leociak, The Warsaw Ghetto: A Guide to the Perished
City, trans. Emma Harris (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 555.
147
Gilbert, 45.
148
Engelking and Leociak, 574.
149
Fass, 55.
52
MUSICAL GROUPS
The varied musical landscape of Warsaw directly correlated with the diversity and
wealth of its citizens. For many, the only musical tunes heard were those sung and played by
street performers in the ghetto, while the rich found musical entertainment through the formal
venues that required tickets for purchase.150 Warsaw boasted a symphony orchestra, Polish
and Yiddish theaters, night club entertainment, solo and chamber recitals, and numerous
adult and children’s choirs. Music for the performers was driven almost exclusively for the
purpose of earning money to prolong their lives. Marcel Reich-Ranicki states, “Before long
some musicians conceived the idea of organizing a symphony orchestra in the ghetto. To
serve the noble art or to provide joy and pleasure to others? Nothing of the sort—they wanted
to earn some money in order to assuage their hunger.”151 Music for the audience and
passersby served a much different purpose, including entertainment, relaxation, and an
escape from the reality of ghetto life.
Musical acquaintances from Warsaw reconnected following the move into the ghetto
and re-established musical groups and collaborations. In many reports, anxiety ran higher
during the period right before the ghetto was closed because of the uncertainty Jews felt for
their future. Nazi authority imposed many restrictive policies on Jews, which limited their
ability to assimilate into city life. Their businesses and educational and religious institutions
were closed, leaving many unemployed without the possibility for future work. Musicians
during this time were forbidden from taking the stage, and their own musical organizations
were shut down, leaving behind broken theater groups, choirs, and orchestras. Following the
establishment of the ghetto, tensions calmed a little, and Jews were willing to start rebuilding
their lives from the shattered pieces of their previous society.152 The adult choir, the Szir, was
one of the most successful musical ensembles that regrouped following the ghetto settlement.
Kopel Piżyc describes the choir:
In November 1949 in the sealed ghetto in Warsaw a group of Jews decided to
organize a choir…There were about forty of them, both men and women, mainly
150
Gilbert, 24-26.
151
Reich-Ranicki, 153.
152
Isaiah Trunk, Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi Occupation (New York:
Macmillan, 1972), 219; Gilbert, 34-36.
53
manual laborers, and they knew one another because before the war they sang
together in Sznejer’s choir…They met in the evenings and sang. Their repertoire
was very varied, in Hebrew and Yiddish…and they mainly sang serious music, by
well-known composers—difficult songs, with many parts…Early in 1941 the
members of the choir made contact with a professor of choral music, Fajwiszys,
who had been deported from Łódź. [He] tried to find permanent premises where
the choir could meet, hold rehearsals, and organize vocal evenings. He found
these in the kitchen at 13 Zamenhof Street, the headquarters of Zionist groups.153
During the lifespan of the Szir, it grew to 80 members and was aided by the patronage
committee headed by Kopel Piżyc. There were also two folk choruses and the choir of the
great synagogue that performed around the ghetto. In addition to the adult choirs, children’s
choirs were popular, especially those associated with educational orphanages. Children’s
choirs were founded to help support schools by using the money collected from
performances to equip and organize educational activities. The adult choirs would
occasionally collaborate with the symphony orchestra to add accompaniment to their songs.
The Jewish Symphony Orchestra was the leading instrumental group in the ghetto and
performed over 40 concerts over its two-year existence. Originally, the establishment of the
orchestra was unofficial, but by 5 January 1941 it was given permission to rehearse and
perform.154 The rehearsals, according to Marcel Reich Ranicki, were “long and thorough”
which allowed for an impressive repertoire.155
The five licensed theaters employed actors, musicians, artistic and literary directors,
and musical directors, which created a type of company affiliated with each theater. Most of
the theaters boasted a resident orchestra and cast for use in their performances. In total, the
five theaters held 68 premieres in both Yiddish and Polish. As Isaiah Trunk writes, “There
were always enough people currently making money among the ghetto inmates—smugglers,
shop owners, all sorts of wheeler-dealers, and others—ready to enjoy cheap entertainment.
They constituted a steady audience for the various shows and theaters catering to their
tastes.”156
153
Engelking and Leociak, 577.
154
Gilbert, 43.
155
Reich-Ranicki, 154.
156
Trunk, 223.
54
In simpler settings, Warsaw enjoyed private chamber concerts and solo recitals
performed in soup kitchens, houses, or in the summer gardens. Piano, violin, and vocal
recitals were the most popular, and one of the prominent performers in the ghetto was
Marysia Ajzensztadt, known as the “Nightingale of the Ghetto.”157 The Gazeta Żydowska
reported that Marysia was “a great artist, endowed with divine grace, and her singing is
perfection above all praise. She has a voice full of freshness and enchanting brightness.”158
The establishment of a patronage committee provided public sponsorship for musical
activities and specific artists, which helped guarantee regular concerts.
The patrons of cafés were not exclusively the wealthy Jewish citizens, but also
included the smugglers, the black marketers, wealthy Germans, and Aryan Poles who lived
outside the ghetto but had connections, which enabled them to gain admittance to the ghetto
in the evenings.159 The patronage committee arranged for grants and subsidies for the
musicians to help sustain their health. During rehearsals, for example the choir members
were given free meals.160 There was also a hierarchy within the café: the front room was the
cheapest, the price doubled in the second room where the orchestra played, and a third room
for card players included tables that were rented by the hour. Owners’ income was 1000 złoty
per day.161
NAZI POLICY ON MUSIC
Emmanual Ringelblum, in his memoir, recalled that most of the daily events of
ordinary life occurred without much interference from the German officers. Individuals were
able to socialize, work, eat, and wander the streets of the ghetto—not without some risk, but
feeling relatively free within their confined space. The sense of freedom and lack of stringent
rules and daily routines gave Warsaw Jews a false sense of hope that they had met their worst
fate, unknowing of plans of extermination and transports.162 Although there was a feeling of
157
Gilbert, 44.
158
Engelking and Leociak, 575.
159
Ringelblum, 72; Kaplan, 290-291.
160
Engelking and Leociak, 577.
161
Kaplan, 291.
162
Ringelblum, 24.
55
freedom, there were some basic rules that musicians were to follow, namely that no
performance was to include works by Aryan composers. The rule was clearly stated and
widely known, but rarely followed.
The official establishment of the Jewish Symphony Orchestra received permission
from the Germans with the condition that all programs be subject to censorship and that no
works by Aryan composers be played. After months of violating these orders, all orchestral
activities were suddenly banned by the Nazis. The orchestra paid little attention to the rules,
and in fact made no attempt at hiding their repertoire. There are surviving programs and
advertisements that were published in the Gazeta Żydowska that clearly show the blatant
disregard the orchestra had for the rule that intended to bind musicians to works by nonAryan composers.163 Following the dismantling of the orchestra, other groups paid closer
attention to the formidable rules and limited their repertoire to Jewish tunes. Mendelssohn,
Offenbach, Meyerbeer, and Anton Ruinstein became the voices of almost all musical
activities.
Music by Frédéric Chopin was specifically banned in the entire city of Warsaw, both
within the partitioned ghetto and the city beyond. A few months after Germany took over
Warsaw, the Chopin monument was blown up by the German authorities, and shortly
afterwards a prohibition was placed on all his music for being connected with the Polish
national tradition.164 Eventually the ban was lifted and works by Chopin were accepted
everywhere except within the ghetto. Reich-Ranicki remembers that “now and again some
young pianist or other, rather recklessly, would play a less well known piece of his
[Chopin’s] as an encore.”165
Another forbidden type of music was anything of national character. Emmanual
Ringelblum recalled an incident that took place in a café when “one of the diners asked that
the band play the Jewish National Anthem, Hatikvah. Everyone stood up. Got the first
slap.”166 It is unclear who got the first slap, but regardless, the Jews in that particular room
163
Gilbert, 44.
164
Reich-Ranicki, 155.
165
Ibid., 156.
166
Ringelblum, 11.
56
were caught honoring their country with song and paid the price with a small yet humiliating
slap. Jews were also restricted from attending religious services and participating in religious
singing, but again, the rule did not seem to stop them.167 Mary Berg writes, “Despite the
various prohibitions, many things are done in the ghetto, as they are on the Aryan side, which
are forbidden under penalty of death.”168
In addition to the rules placed on prisoners by the Germans, there was also a
governing body of prisoners that regulated musical activities. ZTOS was a clandestine
organization that arose in September 1940 to help supervise the cultural life in Warsaw.
Their aim was to raise the musical standard, promote education, and provide protection to the
professionally employed musicians. Also, attention was given to young prospective virtuosos
in order to teach them and foster their talents. It is reported that in the first years of its
existence, the committee organized around 2,000 performances and registered approximately
150 musicians.169
MUSICIANS’ STATUS
Warsaw musicians were integrated in all levels of society, including the elite, the
employed middle class, and the homeless beggars who inhabited the streets and alleys of the
ghetto. The status of the musicians in Warsaw was as varied as the society itself.
At the bottom of the social structure were unemployed musicians and refugees with
no trade or skill to offer their new community. Musicians, with their families and children in
tow, stood on street corners and endlessly played or sang in hopes that a passerby would
donate something to ease their misery. Describing the begging on the streets, Ringleblum
said, “Lately, whole families have been out begging, sometimes even well-dressed people.
Musicians and singers take their children along with them to ‘work’. The father plays an
instrument, while his child or children put out their caps for a coin…Generally speaking,
family begging has become the mode.”170 As refugees poured into Warsaw, without housing
arrangements and with little more than they could physically carry, the already thinly
167
Berg, 83.
168
Ibid., 83.
169
Gilbert, 36.
170
Ringelblum, 205.
57
dispersed aid and supplies were stretched thinner still. Wladyslaw Szpilman recalls that, “the
number of street bands grew with the general misery.”171
Some of the luckier musicians in a lower middle class situation were able to locate
employment in the cafés and nightclubs. Wladyslaw Szpilman claimed to support himself
and his entire family of six with the pay he received from entertainment establishments for
his piano playing.172 Futhermore, a public patronage committee was established with the aim
of providing sponsors for individual musicians or small chamber groups. Marysia Eisenstadt,
the proclaimed “nightingale of the ghetto,” benefited from this program and gained
prominence.173 Finally, those musicians who were blessed with fortune enough to maintain
private living quarters as well as their valuable pianos and instruments were able to hold
house concerts in their homes and regularly enjoy the café and theater scenes.
NAZIS’ USE OF MUSIC
Warsaw was meant to appear autonomous after the Germans organized the Judenrat,
whose purpose was to self-police and keep order around the ghetto, but the Judenrat operated
within very strict boundaries outlined by German authorities. With a Jewish ruling class in
place, the Germans were able to limit their own interactions with Jews, and less supervision
of ghetto affairs was needed, thus enabling them to focus most their efforts on border
security. The lack of German presence throughout Jewish quarters allowed the city life to
develop without the constant fear of spontaneous raids and roundups that defined the period
before the ghetto was established. Warsaw’s function in the Final Solution was essentially a
holding center for the Jews until they all could be transferred out of Warsaw city limits to an
extermination camp. The Germans’ conscious efforts to assuage the interned Jews and
discourage uprisings or other resistance during this interim period were apparent in their
relaxed policies on musical and cultural activities within the ghetto. Musical activities and
the freedom to perform and teach added to the illusion of stability.174
171
Szpilman, 66.
172
Szpilman, 16; quoted in Gilbert, 30.
173
Gilbert, 44.
174
Gilbert, 36-37; Trunk, 216.
58
The Nazis used music as a tool to dehumanize the Jews, and it also provided a
distraction from their mundane jobs of guarding the ghetto gates.175 In his memoir,
Wladyslaw Szpilman recalls:
The Guards would get bored at their posts and one of their favorite pastimes was
to gather musicians from nearby side streets and would choose people out of the
waiting crowd whose appearance they thought particularly comic and ordered
them to dance waltzes. The musicians took up a position by the wall of a building,
space was cleared in the road, and one policemen acted as conductor by hitting
the musicians if they played too slowly. Couples of cripples, old people, very fat
or very thin had to whirl about in circles before the horrified crowd.176
The diary of Emmanual Ringelblum documents two examples of the sadistic practices of the
Germans. The first was in October 1940:
As some S.S. men were removing furniture from a house on Ciepla Street, across
the way, a Jewish troupe was singing and playing music. The S.S. men ordered
the troupe to play a waltz and dance in the middle of the street. The well-dressed
Jews who came along were ordered to give 5 zlotys for the entertainment; poorly
dressed Jews, 10 groschen and more.177
Ringelblum records a second instance in May 1942 when he writes, “The Gestapo men today
discovered a new game. They drag the Jewish musicians out of all the café houses, gardens,
etc., and pull them over to the Pawia Street prison, where they are forced to entertain the
company all night. They did that last night, and they’re doing the same thing tonight.”178
Fortunately, these practices were not an everyday event, but they provide insight into the
Nazis’ world, where they would use anything to aid them in their quest to break down the
Jews’ spirit and to steal their humanity.
The Germans used the café scene, already staged with luxurious food and musical
entertainment with an orchestra and soloists, to make films intended for propaganda
purposes. Szpilman remembered the Germans bursting into the restaurant and demanding
that customers continue on with their merriment while the German cinematographer caught
the laughter, music, and food on camera. The films were intended to show that the Jews of
Warsaw were socializing and happily entertaining themselves. The Nazis hoped that the
175
Gilbert, 30.
176
Szpilman, 66-67.
177
Ringelblum, 74.
178
Ibid., 278.
59
wealth of the patrons and the success of the musicians would assuage any concerns the
Germans or foreigners had concerning the welfare of the Warsaw Jews.179 The Germans also
filmed performances of operetta and symphonic concerts at the Femina cinema at Leszno
Street to be included in the propaganda films.
Many of the nightclub establishments were opened with the help of wealthy and wellconnected Germans. Moshe Fass argues that they had interest in the booming businesses
because they hoped to use the vulgarity and cheap style performances as evidence of the
indecency of the Jewish population. Fass provides the example of when the Jewish Cultural
Organization requested permission to hold musical activities on its land. It was only allowed
to do so on condition that the entertainment be of the café variety.
179
Szpilman, 81.
60
CHAPTER 5
CONCLUSION
Auschwitz, Terezín, and Warsaw were part of an elaborate plan conceived by the
Nazis to purify German blood. The three camps aided the Nazis’ quest in different ways:
Auschwitz served as an extermination camp; Warsaw as a temporary holding center; and
Terezín as a camp to house famous musicians in order to deceive the world. Nazism tried to
crush the human spirit of those they perceived to be impure and unworthy of life, but there is
evidence embedded in the history of each camp that humans are capable of adapting when
subjected to horrifying conditions. While incarcerated, musicians found a way to acquire
instruments, organize musical ensembles, and hold public and private concerts. Music for
some inmates became an expression of hope and for other prisoners it was merely
employment, but for all it became a tool of survival. For the musicians of the concentration
camps, whose lives depended on entertaining the Nazis, performing for the wealthy, or
playing the daily marches for work brigades, music was more than just a pretty tune to be
enjoyed; it was the means to withstand their plight.
Structural disparities between each camp forced the prisoners to adapt differently to
their circumstances, so the individual experiences of musicians varied widely. The induction
process for prisoners in each camp determined what personal belongings and they retained.
The Warsaw ghetto was an established city prior to the Nazi occupation, with a recognized
infrastructure of city streets, furnished apartments, auditoriums, and restaurants. Most
citizens were able to maintain a certain amount of their clothing, valuables, jewelry,
instruments, and books during their resettlement to the ghetto. Those who were transported
into Warsaw from surrounding towns, however, could only bring into the ghetto that which
they could carry. Pianists who were fortunate enough to own a piano were able to practice
and perform as they pleased, unless they shared their living quarters with other musicians.
61
Likewise, instrumentalists had their own instruments at their disposal that they were able to
perform, practice, and enjoy as long as they had not sold them for money or food.180
Terezín was previously a garrison settlement that had rudimentary structures
simulating a small town. Its citizens largely consisted of incoming transports who were
restricted to 110 pounds of luggage, which severely limited the items they could bring. Many
musicians brought with them their cherished instruments and musical scores. Pianists were at
an obvious disadvantage as the weight of a piano far exceeded that which they could bring.
There were, however, several pianos that were shipped into Terezín with the aid of camp
VIPs, which allowed for very limited practice time. Often only the best pianists had the
opportunity to practice and perform. The instruments available to musicians were those that
were hidden in suitcases of inmates and were, as in Warsaw, the private property of the
musician. Because Terezín was developed as a showcase camp, the Germans were more
likely there to aid Jews in the retrieval of instruments.
Auschwitz, the most hostile camp of the three, was erected for the purpose of
systematically executing its prisoners. When inmates entered Auschwitz, their belongings
were taken and they were issued ill-fitting camp attire in place of their own clothing.
Resourceful inmates could often acquire additional items of value, including underwear,
stockings, coats, a second shirt, and bedding. Musical instruments were hidden in the
suitcases of transports, but instruments were confiscated upon entry and reissued and
reissued to the orchestra. Musical equipment was not owned by individuals, but was made
available based on the German desire to have an orchestra play for the morning and evening
marches. It has been stated in numerous memoirs that the Germans had more interest in the
preservation of the instruments than of the players.181 Musical scores were much harder to
find in Auschwitz than the other two camps. Performances of the orchestra were mostly
limited to repertoire that the musicians had previously memorized and commissions from the
supervising officers. The main source of sheet music came from music copyists employed by
180
Out of the three camps, the only mention of a harp was within the walls of the Warsaw ghetto, likely
because a harp would have been too dangerous and difficult of a task to smuggle into either Terezín or
Auschwitz.
181
Laks, 66-67; Newman and Kirtley, 247.
62
the orchestra who had the refined skills of orchestrating, transcribing, and arranging
melodies.
Musicians in all three camps gained access to musical scores and instruments in
various ways. Auschwitz became a place of severity where the prisoners were robbed of their
possessions and were lent instruments to serve and entertain the Germans. Warsaw citizens,
conversely, maintained ownership of their own instruments and music, with which they were
able to seek employment, provide entertainment, and beg for sustenance. In Terezín,
musicians were used by the Germans to supply entertainment for the international showcase.
Street begging existed only in Warsaw because of the wide spectrum of the wealth of
its citizens—the wealthier streets of the ghetto were inundated with beggars pleading for
help. In contrast to Warsaw, a greater sense of equality existed among the prisoners of
Terezín and Auschwitz. In both Auschwitz and Terezín prisoners arrived into the camps with
very few personal belongings. Resourceful prisoners were able to gain access to added
rations and luxuries by smuggling or saving bread to sell in exchange for other items of
necessity, but that effort did not relieve them from poverty and starvation.
Residents of Auschwitz, Terezín, and Warsaw all heard the melodies of classical and
contemporary songs. In Warsaw, the prisoners had little interaction with the German guards
and were relatively free to express themselves musically. Aryan compositions were banned,
as was all music by Chopin, who was thought to incite patriotism among the many Poles who
inhabited the ghetto, but musicians did not strictly adhere to these sanctions. Prisoners at
Terezín, on the other hand, seemed to have limitless freedom in their repertoire selection. To
successfully deceive the public, the Nazis needed competent performers who displayed
musical conviction as they concertized. In Auschwitz, where one was under the constant
glare of, or command from, an SS officer, much of the musical repertoire was restricted to
marches in the style of John Philip Sousa. The Sunday afternoon concerts had more
leniencies, although the performance of Jewish compositions was strictly forbidden—the
audience in Auschwitz mainly consisted of German guards who would not tolerate listening
to music of Jewish composers. The Nazi control in Auschwitz dictated not only the selection
of music, but also when and where it could be played. Occasionally, musicians would sneak
Jewish music into the orchestra’s repertoire, usually in disguise, and without formal
announcement.
63
In Auschwitz, most concerts were performed outdoors with the exception of an
occasional recital for the patients in the hospital and the Sunday concerts in the bathhouse.
With barely enough food to survive, inadequate clothing made from rags, and sleeping
accommodations that required up to five prisoners to share a single bunk, it is no surprise that
Auschwitz musicians did not have a performance hall or adequate space for concerts. Subject
to harsh weather, the orchestra performed daily marches outdoors in the mornings and
evenings for their fellow prisoners in work brigades. Terezín, more urban than Auschwitz,
had a variety of venues in its relatively robust musical culture. The most common venues
were attics and basements, courtyards, orphanages, private apartments, and the city hall for
larger concerts. The concert halls were beautifully decorated to impress and deceive foreign
investigators. The adorned venues, along with elaborately staged programs, successfully
convinced foreign officials of the general well being of the Jews. Unlike Auschwitz and
Terezín, the Warsaw ghetto had extremely diverse architecture, including apartments, halls,
old theaters, cinemas, store fronts, and auditoriums. Musicians used the assortment of
buildings that the city offered to produce their concerts. Warsaw had at least five theaters,
countless cafés and restaurants, and city halls that were regularly used for performance.
Warsaw prisoners usually reserved outdoor concerts for the street bands and beggars, but
during the summer, when weather permitted, gardens served as a gathering place for
musicians and audiences. Cafés, house concerts, theaters, the Judaica Library, and soup
kitchens were the usual locations for musical events.
With very little opportunity to meet socially due to strict curfews and a regimented
camp schedule, the only known musical groups in Auschwitz were the camp designated
orchestras. Auschwitz prisoners were closely monitored by the Germans, whereas prisoners
in Terezín and Warsaw could generally carry out their daily activities undisturbed by the
guards. This allowed for greater musical freedom than what prisoners in Auschwitz
encountered. The inmates at Terezín, for example, engaged in a variety of musical
collaborations, including five choirs, string quartets, private vocal and instrumental recitals,
and several orchestras. It was the Nazi’s plan to present Terezín as a model Jewish settlement
to mask the extermination of the Jews from the eyes of the world. The purpose for Terezín to
perpetuate propaganda resulted in greater freedoms among the Jews, including the
performance of music. Warsaw, which did not have the facilities for mass extermination
64
became a transitional stop for the prisoners. The Germans wanted to avoid resistive
movements and, to pacify its citizens and occupy their time, the Nazi occupiers permitted
selected cultural activities. As a consequence, the interns at Warsaw had an orchestra for
little more than a year, Polish and Yiddish theater companies, and chamber recitals.
Musicians in each camp met unique challenges in their newfound homes, but their
natural desire for a refined performance led them to some unconventional practices. During
the preparation of Verdi’s Requiem in Terezín, for example, transports to extermination
camps continually impacted and threatened the steady progress of rehearsals. Rafael
Schächter had to replace soloists and choir members frequently, which required him to
recruit and train new musicians on a constant basis. Following two frustrating and tragic
losses to the choir, Schächter anticipated that disease, death, and transports would continue to
stake their claims, so he supplied the choir with more singers than he needed—he hoped that
by overstaffing the choir, he would avoid further disruptions to the progress of the music.
Szymon Laks, the conductor of the men’s orchestra at Auschwitz, wanted to improve the
consistency of sound and raise the level of musicianship, but he had the challenging situation
of a high death rate of his musicians, which resulted in incomplete harmonies. He adapted by
using a special type of orchestration called “Odeon,” which made it possible for any sized
group to perform the work, regardless of last-minute changes in the ensemble. These
practices enabled the incarcerated musicians to achieve a more consistent and reliable sound.
Unique to Warsaw, self-help organizations emerged to combat the inequalities of
prisoners and provide aid to starving and penniless refugees. Music joined in the cause when
organized ensembles offered concerts as fundraisers. Also, choirs provided concerts to help
fund the ongoing outreach efforts of the orphanages. Wealthy patrons of the arts,
understanding the importance of proper nourishment to physical and mental performance,
often fed musicians before concerts.
The Nazis were very calculating during their reign, and their deliberate use of music
was no exception. Nazis used music in different ways depending on what their goals were for
each camp. In Auschwitz, structure and efficiency were among the most important elements
of camp life, and accordingly, Nazis used music to maintain organized lines during the
controlled marches. One of the main goals for the Terezín camp was to deceive the world,
and elaborate musical productions helped assuage the suspicion of foreign inquisitors. Since
65
Warsaw was only a temporary holding center, its purpose was to concentrate as many Jews in
the ghetto boundaries as possible until they could be transferred to a permanent camp. Music
in this environment served to pacify Jews and occupy their time so there would be less
possibility of resistance.
Propaganda was the means by which Nazism spread, and Nazis applied it to varying
degrees in the three evaluated camps. In Warsaw, Nazis filmed musicians and wealthy
patrons in cafés and restaurants to show the public that the Jews were living comfortably in
their quarters while the Germans were fighting an increasingly violent war. In Auschwitz, an
attempt at propaganda was staged following a formal request by the Red Cross to tour the
camp. An entire transport from Terezín was housed and given special treatment, including
the freedom to develop musical activities, organize a school, receive food parcels, and were
not sent out to work. Propaganda penetrated many aspects of life in Terezín. False promises
prompted volunteer transfers into the camp, and the Nazi attempts to deceive the world
allowed unhindered musical and cultural activities to blossom.
Musicians’ status varied among the three camps. In Warsaw, there was a great
motivation to make money, and the search for employment and food was ongoing. Some
musicians were part of the working class employed in restaurants and cafés, while others
were destitute beggars on the streets, but both groups applied their musical skills in their
quest for survival. While musicians in Warsaw were among the commoners of city life, in
Terezín professional musicians had a slightly elevated status from others because those who
were registered with the Freizeitgestaltung were exempt from labor assignments and were
given time during the day to rehearse and study. Less physical labor meant that their meager
allocations of food stretched further in maintaining their energy level. Amateur musicians
were not as lucky: they participated in musical activities without relief from the Judenrat and
could only rehearse and perform after a full day’s work. Finally, in Auschwitz, where
subtleties distinguished the elite from the poor, musicians were considered privileged.
Orchestra members had better living arrangements, had better food rations, and occasionally
got parcels from supervising SS officers who were pleased with the entertainment. The
luxuries musicians enjoyed—such as a pair of socks, underwear, sheets, or a coat—were
significant factors that determined one’s wealth.
66
The rules for selecting the repertoire differed among the three camps. In the ghetto of
Warsaw, Nazis preferred the Jewish musicians to play music of their own history and
nationality with an ideological ban on all Aryan music. The rationale behind the ban was to
separate completely the Jews from the Germans; any overlap, even in music, was considered
contamination. The supervising Germans were offended by the idea of Jews finding pleasure
in the rich musical history of Germany. In stark contrast, because the Nazi desire in
Auschwitz was to suppress every aspect of individuality, there was a complete intolerance for
Jewish, Polish, or any other music that would rouse a sense of national pride. Auschwitz’s
gas chamber operation was a high priority for the Nazis and could not be compromised with
the risk of resistance, so all measures were taken to discourage any unifying feelings among
the prisoners, including the ban on music. The discrepancy of policies on music lends insight
into the mind of the Nazi: they would not allow Jews to play German music because they
wanted to segregate the Jews from anything German, but they would not allow them to play
their national hymns for fear they might rise in power and unity.
The Nazis considered the musical activities in Warsaw and Terezín as privileges that
prisoners enjoyed, and in both camps all concerts were held in abeyance as punishment for
minor infractions of the residents. In Warsaw, orchestra activities were suspended for
violating the ban on Aryan music, and in Terezín all cultural activities were stopped for about
a week because an inmate escaped. For orchestra musicians in Auschwitz playing music was
a responsibility, which they had to face even in severe weather.
In all three camps, music increased the musicians’ possibility for survival. In
Auschwitz, musicians relied on their captors’ interest in music to ensure their continued
contribution to the camp. In Alma Rosé: Vienna to Auschwitz, Newman and Kirtley write, “It
was no secret in the camp that the support of their SS admirers was essential to the survival
of the orchestra members.”182 The orchestra provided its members with a sense of security
from the atrocities of the gas chambers. All other prison blocks were subject to regular
selections that weeded out the frail, sick, and dying members of the camp. With regular
incoming transports, those selected for death could easily be replaced with a stronger and
more able worker. The musicians’ exemption from selections, added food rations, and better
182
Newman and Kirtley, 267.
67
living arrangements gave them a sense of refuge and hope that they might survive. In
Warsaw, safety came from employment in cafés and restaurants as well as performing in
theaters, concert halls, and private homes of the wealthy. Musicians used their talents to gain
financial security, which, in turn, saved them from homelessness, starvation, and ultimately
death. Karel Frölich describes the life of a musician in Terezín:
For an artist, it was a tremendous opportunity to work during the war in his own
field, with excellent colleagues, and actually, in a certain sense, in an ideal milieu.
We did not have to do anything but play music…In a sense, it was only an effort
to get through this war, to survive, and then to continue under normal
conditions.183
Professional musicians who were registered with the Freizeitgestaltung found a degree of
protection from transports to Auschwitz. In all three camps, music, in some way, served as an
armor of safety.
Music functioned differently for the musicians and the listeners in each camp. For the
musician, music was an activity that, as Szymon Laks says, “kept up the ‘spirit’ (or rather the
body) of only…the musicians, who did not have to go out to hard labor and could eat a little
better.”184 Likewise, Marcel Reich-Ranicki of Warsaw remarks, “Before long some
musicians conceived the idea of organizing a symphony orchestra in the ghetto. To serve the
noble art or to provide joy and pleasure to others? Nothing of the sort—they wanted to earn
some money in order to assuage their hunger.”185 However, for the audience, responses to the
presence of music varied. In some cases, inmates found an escape from the terrors of their
situation, while others felt outrage by the presence of music in such a brutal environment. In
her memoir, None of Us Will Return, Charlotte Delbo writes:
The orchestra stood on an embankment near the gate…When the commandant
ordered them to play for him, he had an extra loaf of bread passed out to the
musicians. And when the new arrivals alighted from the boxcars into the ranks or
the gas chamber, he liked it to be to the rhythm of a gay march. As we passed [at
the gate] we had to keep time. Later they played waltzes we had heard in an
obliterated past. Hearing them here was unbearable. Seated on stools they play.
Do not look at the fingers of the cellist, nor at her eyes, you will not be able to
bear it. Do not look at the gestures of the woman who is conducting. She parodies
183
Karas, 195.
184
Laks, 117.
185
Reich-Ranicki, 153.
68
the woman she was in the large café in Vienna where she once conducted a
female orchestra, and it is obvious that she is thinking of what she used to be. All
of them are wearing navy blue pleated skirts, light blouses, lavender
handkerchiefs over their heads. They are dressed this way to set the pace for the
others who go to the marshes in the dresses they sleep in, otherwise the dresses
would never dry. 186
A similar response came from Romana Duraczowa, who recollects:
The camp orchestra in Birkenau is playing lively marches, popular foxtrots, it’s
enough to make your belly ache. How we hate that music and those musicians!
Those dolls sit there, all in navy blue dresses and white collars—in comfortable
chairs. That music is supposed to perk us up, to mobilize us like the sound of a
war trumpet that during a battle rouses even croaking horses.187
Some authors refer to music in the concentration camps as a spiritual resistance and a way for
prisoners to escape their harsh reality. Although true for some prisoners, the extent to which
most inmates in Auschwitz engaged in musical activities was the steady beats of the marches
that forced wearied prisoners to hasten their steps, or an occasional glimpse of an outdoor
concert. Kitty Hart describes one memorable event:
I shall always remember one concert. It was Alma Rosé, a Jewish woman from
Vienna who conducted the orchestra. She also gave a solo recital of some famous violin
concerto. It would have been very enjoyable indeed, were it not for the fact that we all in
Block 15-opposite the “concert hall” listened to it while kneeling in the snow with our arms
stretched out above our heads.188
For the prisoners, music was a part of daily life that Primo Levi believes will “lie
engraven on our minds and will be the last thing in Lager that we shall forget: they are the
voice of the Lager, the perceptible expression of its geometrical madness, of the resolution of
others to annihilate us first as men in order to kill us more slowly afterwards.”189 The
Germans were the main audience for the Auschwitz orchestra, and the musicians were
rewarded, sometimes generously, for providing entertainment. The functionaries, seeking an
emotional escape from their work of managing prisoners and overseeing selections, found
relief through music—they were able to put aside their abhorrence for the Jews, whose music
186
Quoted in Newman and Kirtley, 267.
187
Laks, 116.
188
Hart, 75.
189
Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz, trans. Stuart Woolf (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1958), 57.
69
provided them with temporary respite. In contrast, Terezín and Warsaw residents were both
the participants and the audience members. Musicians found financial security and the
Jewish listeners found a diversion from the oppression of the regime. Marcel Reich-Ranicki
reports that “concerts were well-attended, symphony concerts usually overcrowded.
Audience members were longing for solace and elevation, shelter and refuge for an hour or
two, searching for some form of security and perhaps even happiness.”190 Both the Germans
and the Jews were looking for an outlet to escape the reality of the war.
Music is capable of stirring the soul, regardless of one’s nationality and race. Does an
individual have to be inherently good to enjoy beautiful and uplifting music or can one find
joy in music regardless of their nature? Should not the character of the music enthusiast be
reflected in his or her preferences in music? In other words, can evil and good people both be
stirred by the same music? In Auschwitz, music that resonated with Jews, the guiltless
victims, were the same songs that the culpable Germans longed to hear. As Szymon Laks
writes,
When an esman listened to music, especially of the kind he really liked, he
somehow became strangely similar to a human being. His voice lost its typical
harshness, he suddenly acquired an easy manner, and one could talk with him
almost as one equal to another…Could people who love music to this extent,
people who can cry when they hear it, be at the same time capable of committing
so many atrocities on the rest of humanity?191
Music was said to have softened the tone of the typically harsh guards who seemed more
human for a period. In Act V, Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, Lorenzo
delivers the following speech to Jessica, the daughter of Shylock, the Jew who is mistreated
in the play:
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils:
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.
Music has the power to transform even the most callous individual. The Nazis displayed a
lack of morals in their pursuit of the eradication of the Jews, however in moments of musical
190
Reich-Ranicki, 159.
191
Laks, 70.
70
respite, their humanity surfaced. The Nazi ability to be moved by music, especially music
performed by their victims, shows the depth of their polarity.
Musicians are trained to rehearse diligently to refine their interpretation of a piece of
music. One would think that, in the context of a concentration camp, matters of tempo,
orchestration, and incomplete chords would be overlooked because of the stresses of camp
life. The worries of physical survival did not result in haphazard attempts in music.
Musicians, as taught in their lives leading up to their incarcerations, sought beauty in the
same manner that was attempted during their pre-war studies. They meticulously rehearsed,
transcribed, and orchestrated music that accommodated their collection of instruments, and
had a conductor who directed the ensembles. They did not compromise the beauty of music.
Nazis could strip Jewish musicians of their clothing, valuables, and families, but they could
not take their desire to create beautiful music.
In environments where Jews were robbed of their individuality, musical expression
could not be taken away. Music was a representation of the prisoners’ previous lives, the
musical repertoire they knew and studied before they entered camp, and their mastered
musical talents. Their previous associations with music could not be erased. Music is a lot of
things: it provides an outlet for entertainment, an oral history, and, for some, a spiritual
connection to God. We sing for joy; we sing lullabies to calm and reassure; and we sing to
worship, celebrate, and honor. It is understandable that the Jews continued to make music
during their traumatic experience in the camps. The Nazi concentration camps of Warsaw,
Terezín, and Auschwitz were not the only sites where music emerged during a time of crisis.
Throughout history, music has infiltrated barbaric crime scenes and places of horror. Music
has the power to unite, heal, and strengthen, and in times of desperation, music can emerge as
a saving grace.
71
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