The sign above the steel gates of Auschwitz reads "arbeit macht frei" – work sets you free. It was, of course, a chilling lie, an evil hoax. But there was one surprising source of temporary escape inside the gates: music. Composers and singers and musicians, both world-class and recreational, were among the imprisoned. And what's not widely known is that under the bleakest conditions imaginable, they performed and wrote music. Lots of it.
More than 6 million people, most of them Jews, died in the Holocaust, but their music did not, thanks in part to the extraordinary work of Francesco Lotoro. An Italian composer and pianist, Lotoro has spent 30 years recovering, performing, and in some cases, finishing pieces of work composed in captivity. Nearly 75 years after the camps were liberated, Francesco Lotoro is on a remarkable rescue mission, reviving music like this piece created by a young Jewish woman in a Nazi concentration camp in 1944.
Some years ago I was part of an orchestral concert in New York where the music of a concentration-camp composer was played...I think the name was Viktor Ullmann. Very good stuff.
-------------------------------- “It's hard to win an argument with a smart person. It's damn near impossible to win an argument with a stupid person." -- Bill Murray
Posts: 13890 | Location: The outer burrows | Registered: 27 April 2005
They had amazing resiliency. I find the survivors to be fascinating people. I want to hear some of the music. Once read somewhere that the Jews in the camps played music, had no idea it was more than a very small bit.
-------------------------------- Several people have eaten my cooking and survived.
Posts: 25850 | Location: Still living at 9000 feet in the High Rockies of Colorado | Registered: 20 April 2005
