The following is the transcript of my oral research presentation. I had the opportunity to share this presentation at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research at UW-L in La Crosse, WI, as well as Scholars' Day at Viterbo University, and the 5th Warsaw Conference for Young Judaic Studies Researchers at the University of Warsaw, in Warsaw, Poland, as well as Protest Music in the 20th Century in Lucca, Italy. This research is not complete and is a work in progress. Please refer to the references listed below, and if you want an electronic copy of the full manuscript, please email me!
My name is Sonja Larson from Viterbo University in La Crosse, Wisconsin. I am passionate about music in the Holocaust. Through my research, I have found clear examples of music used as a survival technique by the prisoners of the Nazis in WWII. This research is important both in the proof of the power of music and the necessity of its existence for humanity.
I would like to begin by sharing a quote with you. Miriam Harel, member of a Jewish youth resistance group and Auschwitz survivor, said,
The song was the only truth. The Nazis could take everything away from us, but they could not take singing from us. This remained our only human expression.
As part of their “Final Solution,” Adolf Hitler and the Nazis murdered over 6 million Jews and 5-6 million people of other social and economic groups by starvation, overwork, and in the gas chambers. The question is, how did those who were not killed survive the hell-on-earth conditions of the camps?
Many survivors claim that sheer luck saved them. Others looked to their faith, or to family members or friends within the camps. I have found, however, that music was a substantial survival technique because of:
1. Survival due to musical ability
2. Communication/documentation
3. Resistance
4. Comfort, hope, and mental escape
Music played a critical role in the environment of many of the concentration camps outside its use as a tool for survival.
Organized musical ensembles including bands, choirs, and orchestras provided entertainment for the Nazi officers as well as accompaniment for transport arrivals and executions, most famously at Auschwitz. Individual musicians were also exploited for the enjoyment of the Nazis and to drown out the sounds of torture and execution. Music was a critical part of Nazi propaganda, as well.
Terezin, located in what was then Czechoslovakia, was a Red Cross Show Camp in which the Nazis allowed the fine arts, including music, to thrive. Large musical works including operas and Verdi’s Requiem were often performed and musicians were allowed to compose music.
Many musicians survived the concentration camps because of their musical abilities. Because the Nazis needed musicians for their organized ensembles or their own entertainment, musical ability was literally a life-saving skill.
Alma Rose, niece of composer Gustav Mahler, was one of these musicians. When her musical
abilities were discovered by the Nazi officers, she was appointed director of the women’s orchestra in Auschwitz.
Because the Jews were not viewed as humans, Alma used the excuse of the orchestral instruments’ condition and musical quality to negotiate for better clothing, food, and exemption from arduous work for her orchestral members. She also appointed non-members as copyists and transcribers to save (or at least prolong the lives of) as many
prisoners as possible.
Individual musicians were also given privileges such as extra rations or cigarettes by the Nazi officers. Other prisoners were also willing to share whatever they could for fellow prisoners’ performances. M. Nissam, Auschwitz survivor and prisoner-performer said,
In Auschwitz, one could say that I didn't suffer. Singing saved me. I am alive thanks to my singing. In addition to survival due to musical ability, music provided life-saving communication in the camps.
There was absolutely no formal communication within the camps, and information regarding the war or even the date rarely found its way to the prisoners. Vocal music was a way to transfer information without Nazi consequences.
Musicians would modify lyrics of well-known tunes and would sing them around the ghettos and camps.
Because the melodies were easy remembered, these songs encoded with messages spread news of the war outside of the camp as well as information of inside happenings. Rosebury D’Arguto created a resistance choral group that rehearsed in absolute secrecy and encouraged solidarity among the prisoners. In one account, he wrote one of these encoded songs warning of an upcoming deportation using a play on the word "gas".
In addition to communication, music provided comfort, hope, and mental escape to victims of the Holocaust.
Composing was a coping mechanism for many musicians. Operas, string quartets, songs, and countless other musical works were scribbled on any scrap of paper available in the camps. Some musicians were given pencils and paper by the Nazis, along with better living conditions and time to compose. Others simply remembered their compositions mentally, spreading them orally throughout the camps. Through composition, musicians were able to both express themselves and
document the horrific realities of their lives.
Spontaneous singing also helped lift the spirits of prisoners in transports, barracks, and hospital wards. National anthems and hymns were often sung for unity and comfort. Mental escape from daily tragedy was also provided. Nansen, later murdered in Auschwitz, wrote in his diary:
It’s enough to drive one to complete despair when one pulls oneself together and looks things in the face as
they really are. In fact, one mustn’t do it…one couldn’t go on. Therefore, its right to sing songs while others shovel away corpses.
Elisabeth Lichtenstein sang Ave Maria while she and a group of women were stripped, shaved, and tattooed upon arrival at Auschwitz. Of the experience she said,
While I sang, it became quiet in the hall; those who were screaming fell silent, those who were fighting stopped.
Spontaneous singing provided a reminder of the existence of humanity in a place seemingly void of any beauty. Hans Reichman, a survivor of the Sachsenhausen camp, heard a man sing a Jewish prayer. He said,
There was an exultation among us...which men can only experience when they have fallen as low as we had fallen, and then, through the power of a deathless prayer, were awakened once more to the spirit.
Though musicians participating in organized ensembles were performing under the enforcement and torture of the Nazis, they still found mental escape through the music. A child performer in the opera Brundibar remembered,
Somehow it got our mind off the daily tragedy...we did not realize we were in Terezin. A few select prisoners were allowed to watch the concerts performed by the prisoner ensembles.
R. Newman, a survivor of Auschwitz, said that the performance was,
...one of the only elements of beauty in [our] circle of death...a reminder that there was something such as family, home, and artistry outside Auschwitz.
Finally, in a place void of any weapons or possibility of any prisoner revolt, music provided resistance both spiritually and by way of information transfer.
Rosebury D’Arguto’s resistance choir in Sachsenhausen unified all races and religions and provided political resistance to the Nazis through its music. Rehearsing in complete secret, this music united people in the dividing psychology of the camp. In another example, the Gordonya Organization was a Jewish resistance group that used songs that encouraged cooperation, teamwork, and taking action in its meetings in the Lodz ghetto.
Spontaneous singing in the camps allowed the prisoners to express themselves in ways over which the Nazis had no control. One account recalls a group of prisoners entering the gas chambers singing one final hymn or anthem as a group to offer a final cry of resistance to the Nazis.
Though the musicians were still under the torture of the Nazis, organized performances also offered some kind of resistance. Mirko Tuma, a survivor of Terezin, said this of Verdi’s requiem, performed by musicians who were to be transported to Auschwitz in a matter of days,
This concert of the Requiem…was the ultimate outcry and triumph of the human spirit and final defiance of all Nazism, a metaphysical defiance.
This is just the beginning of my research on Music in the Holocaust. I had the opportunity to present this research at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research at the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse, Viterbo University Scholars' Day and the 5th Warsaw Conference for Young Judaic Studies Researchers at the University of Warsaw in Poland. I have a Viterbo University Summer Research Fellowship with Dr. Mary Ellen Haupert to continue my studies abroad. Through this research I hope to:
1. Gain basic Polish language skills
2. Gain general cultural/historical context
3. Gather further evidence of music as a survival technique
4. Network with scholars and intellectuals in the field
5. Share results with scholars and the general public.
I believe that this research is important as evidence proving the power of music and provides valuable information about music as a coping mechanism. It also adds to the historical record of the holocaust. I am especially interested in the use of music in education and genocide/intolerance prevention. Finally, as a musician, I think it is my responsibility to be certain that my art is created for a positive purpose, as it is so powerful (both negatively and positively). It is my hope that I can give a voice to the silenced music of the Holocaust.
Bibliography
Adler, Eliyana R. 2006. "No Raisins, No Almonds: Singing as Spiritual Resistance to the Holocaust". Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies. 24 (4): 50-66.
Edelman, Samuel M. “Singing in the Face of Death: A study of Jewish Opera and Cabaret During the Holocaust.” Theatrical
Performances During the Holocaust. Edited by Rebecca Rovit and Alvin Goldfarb. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Flam, Gina. Singing for Survival: Songs of the Lodz Ghetto, 1940-45. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992.
Gilbert, Shirli. Music in the Holocaust: Confronting Life in the Nazi Ghettos and Camps. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005.
John, Eckhard. "Music and Concentration Camps: An Approximation." Journal Of Musicological Research 20, no. 4 (August 2001): 269. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed March 26, 2012).
Karas, Joza. “Operatic Performances in Terezin: Krasa's Brundibar.”Theatrical Performances During the Holocaust. Edited by Rebecca Rovit and Alvin Goldfarb. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Karas, Joza. “Selections from If This is a Man.” Theatrical Performances During the Holocaust. Edited by Rebecca Rovit and Alvin Goldfarb. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Milton, Sybil H. “Art in the Context of Theresienstadt.” Theatrical Performances During the Holocaust. Edited by Rebecca Rovit and Alvin Goldfarb. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Moreno, Joseph. 1999. "Orpheus in Hell: Music and Therapy in the Holocaust". The Arts in Psychotherapy. 26 (1): 3.
Nathan-Davis, Sarah. Music of the Holocaust. Remembering for the Future: the Holocaust in an Age of Genocide. Volume 3, Memory. Edited by Wendy Whitworth, et al. Hampshire; New York: Palgrave, 2001.
Hillesum, Etty. “Selections form Letters from Westerbork” Theatrical Performances During the Holocaust. Edited by Rebecca
Rovit and Alvin Goldfarb. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Tuma, Mirko. “Memories of Theresienstadt.” Theatrical Performances During the Holocaust. Edited by Rebecca Rovit and Alvin Goldfarb. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1999.
My name is Sonja Larson from Viterbo University in La Crosse, Wisconsin. I am passionate about music in the Holocaust. Through my research, I have found clear examples of music used as a survival technique by the prisoners of the Nazis in WWII. This research is important both in the proof of the power of music and the necessity of its existence for humanity.
I would like to begin by sharing a quote with you. Miriam Harel, member of a Jewish youth resistance group and Auschwitz survivor, said,
The song was the only truth. The Nazis could take everything away from us, but they could not take singing from us. This remained our only human expression.
As part of their “Final Solution,” Adolf Hitler and the Nazis murdered over 6 million Jews and 5-6 million people of other social and economic groups by starvation, overwork, and in the gas chambers. The question is, how did those who were not killed survive the hell-on-earth conditions of the camps?
Many survivors claim that sheer luck saved them. Others looked to their faith, or to family members or friends within the camps. I have found, however, that music was a substantial survival technique because of:
1. Survival due to musical ability
2. Communication/documentation
3. Resistance
4. Comfort, hope, and mental escape
Music played a critical role in the environment of many of the concentration camps outside its use as a tool for survival.
Organized musical ensembles including bands, choirs, and orchestras provided entertainment for the Nazi officers as well as accompaniment for transport arrivals and executions, most famously at Auschwitz. Individual musicians were also exploited for the enjoyment of the Nazis and to drown out the sounds of torture and execution. Music was a critical part of Nazi propaganda, as well.
Terezin, located in what was then Czechoslovakia, was a Red Cross Show Camp in which the Nazis allowed the fine arts, including music, to thrive. Large musical works including operas and Verdi’s Requiem were often performed and musicians were allowed to compose music.
Many musicians survived the concentration camps because of their musical abilities. Because the Nazis needed musicians for their organized ensembles or their own entertainment, musical ability was literally a life-saving skill.
Alma Rose, niece of composer Gustav Mahler, was one of these musicians. When her musical
abilities were discovered by the Nazi officers, she was appointed director of the women’s orchestra in Auschwitz.
Because the Jews were not viewed as humans, Alma used the excuse of the orchestral instruments’ condition and musical quality to negotiate for better clothing, food, and exemption from arduous work for her orchestral members. She also appointed non-members as copyists and transcribers to save (or at least prolong the lives of) as many
prisoners as possible.
Individual musicians were also given privileges such as extra rations or cigarettes by the Nazi officers. Other prisoners were also willing to share whatever they could for fellow prisoners’ performances. M. Nissam, Auschwitz survivor and prisoner-performer said,
In Auschwitz, one could say that I didn't suffer. Singing saved me. I am alive thanks to my singing. In addition to survival due to musical ability, music provided life-saving communication in the camps.
There was absolutely no formal communication within the camps, and information regarding the war or even the date rarely found its way to the prisoners. Vocal music was a way to transfer information without Nazi consequences.
Musicians would modify lyrics of well-known tunes and would sing them around the ghettos and camps.
Because the melodies were easy remembered, these songs encoded with messages spread news of the war outside of the camp as well as information of inside happenings. Rosebury D’Arguto created a resistance choral group that rehearsed in absolute secrecy and encouraged solidarity among the prisoners. In one account, he wrote one of these encoded songs warning of an upcoming deportation using a play on the word "gas".
In addition to communication, music provided comfort, hope, and mental escape to victims of the Holocaust.
Composing was a coping mechanism for many musicians. Operas, string quartets, songs, and countless other musical works were scribbled on any scrap of paper available in the camps. Some musicians were given pencils and paper by the Nazis, along with better living conditions and time to compose. Others simply remembered their compositions mentally, spreading them orally throughout the camps. Through composition, musicians were able to both express themselves and
document the horrific realities of their lives.
Spontaneous singing also helped lift the spirits of prisoners in transports, barracks, and hospital wards. National anthems and hymns were often sung for unity and comfort. Mental escape from daily tragedy was also provided. Nansen, later murdered in Auschwitz, wrote in his diary:
It’s enough to drive one to complete despair when one pulls oneself together and looks things in the face as
they really are. In fact, one mustn’t do it…one couldn’t go on. Therefore, its right to sing songs while others shovel away corpses.
Elisabeth Lichtenstein sang Ave Maria while she and a group of women were stripped, shaved, and tattooed upon arrival at Auschwitz. Of the experience she said,
While I sang, it became quiet in the hall; those who were screaming fell silent, those who were fighting stopped.
Spontaneous singing provided a reminder of the existence of humanity in a place seemingly void of any beauty. Hans Reichman, a survivor of the Sachsenhausen camp, heard a man sing a Jewish prayer. He said,
There was an exultation among us...which men can only experience when they have fallen as low as we had fallen, and then, through the power of a deathless prayer, were awakened once more to the spirit.
Though musicians participating in organized ensembles were performing under the enforcement and torture of the Nazis, they still found mental escape through the music. A child performer in the opera Brundibar remembered,
Somehow it got our mind off the daily tragedy...we did not realize we were in Terezin. A few select prisoners were allowed to watch the concerts performed by the prisoner ensembles.
R. Newman, a survivor of Auschwitz, said that the performance was,
...one of the only elements of beauty in [our] circle of death...a reminder that there was something such as family, home, and artistry outside Auschwitz.
Finally, in a place void of any weapons or possibility of any prisoner revolt, music provided resistance both spiritually and by way of information transfer.
Rosebury D’Arguto’s resistance choir in Sachsenhausen unified all races and religions and provided political resistance to the Nazis through its music. Rehearsing in complete secret, this music united people in the dividing psychology of the camp. In another example, the Gordonya Organization was a Jewish resistance group that used songs that encouraged cooperation, teamwork, and taking action in its meetings in the Lodz ghetto.
Spontaneous singing in the camps allowed the prisoners to express themselves in ways over which the Nazis had no control. One account recalls a group of prisoners entering the gas chambers singing one final hymn or anthem as a group to offer a final cry of resistance to the Nazis.
Though the musicians were still under the torture of the Nazis, organized performances also offered some kind of resistance. Mirko Tuma, a survivor of Terezin, said this of Verdi’s requiem, performed by musicians who were to be transported to Auschwitz in a matter of days,
This concert of the Requiem…was the ultimate outcry and triumph of the human spirit and final defiance of all Nazism, a metaphysical defiance.
This is just the beginning of my research on Music in the Holocaust. I had the opportunity to present this research at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research at the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse, Viterbo University Scholars' Day and the 5th Warsaw Conference for Young Judaic Studies Researchers at the University of Warsaw in Poland. I have a Viterbo University Summer Research Fellowship with Dr. Mary Ellen Haupert to continue my studies abroad. Through this research I hope to:
1. Gain basic Polish language skills
2. Gain general cultural/historical context
3. Gather further evidence of music as a survival technique
4. Network with scholars and intellectuals in the field
5. Share results with scholars and the general public.
I believe that this research is important as evidence proving the power of music and provides valuable information about music as a coping mechanism. It also adds to the historical record of the holocaust. I am especially interested in the use of music in education and genocide/intolerance prevention. Finally, as a musician, I think it is my responsibility to be certain that my art is created for a positive purpose, as it is so powerful (both negatively and positively). It is my hope that I can give a voice to the silenced music of the Holocaust.
Bibliography
Adler, Eliyana R. 2006. "No Raisins, No Almonds: Singing as Spiritual Resistance to the Holocaust". Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies. 24 (4): 50-66.
Edelman, Samuel M. “Singing in the Face of Death: A study of Jewish Opera and Cabaret During the Holocaust.” Theatrical
Performances During the Holocaust. Edited by Rebecca Rovit and Alvin Goldfarb. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Flam, Gina. Singing for Survival: Songs of the Lodz Ghetto, 1940-45. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992.
Gilbert, Shirli. Music in the Holocaust: Confronting Life in the Nazi Ghettos and Camps. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005.
John, Eckhard. "Music and Concentration Camps: An Approximation." Journal Of Musicological Research 20, no. 4 (August 2001): 269. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed March 26, 2012).
Karas, Joza. “Operatic Performances in Terezin: Krasa's Brundibar.”Theatrical Performances During the Holocaust. Edited by Rebecca Rovit and Alvin Goldfarb. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Karas, Joza. “Selections from If This is a Man.” Theatrical Performances During the Holocaust. Edited by Rebecca Rovit and Alvin Goldfarb. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Milton, Sybil H. “Art in the Context of Theresienstadt.” Theatrical Performances During the Holocaust. Edited by Rebecca Rovit and Alvin Goldfarb. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Moreno, Joseph. 1999. "Orpheus in Hell: Music and Therapy in the Holocaust". The Arts in Psychotherapy. 26 (1): 3.
Nathan-Davis, Sarah. Music of the Holocaust. Remembering for the Future: the Holocaust in an Age of Genocide. Volume 3, Memory. Edited by Wendy Whitworth, et al. Hampshire; New York: Palgrave, 2001.
Hillesum, Etty. “Selections form Letters from Westerbork” Theatrical Performances During the Holocaust. Edited by Rebecca
Rovit and Alvin Goldfarb. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Tuma, Mirko. “Memories of Theresienstadt.” Theatrical Performances During the Holocaust. Edited by Rebecca Rovit and Alvin Goldfarb. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1999.