Last of three parts
The second part is available at thevoice.us/more-than-8000-pieces-of-music-collected-from-holocaust
More than 11 Million individuals, six Million of them Jews, died in the Holocaust, (1933-1945). The music they wrote as a temporary escape, however, did not die, thanks in part to the efforts of an Italian composer and pianist, Francesco Lotoro.
“The Lost Music” was a riveting story presented by 60 Minutes recently on CBS-TV.
Jon Wertheim wrote the following presentation in regard to this compelling story.
“Anita Lasker-Wallfisch: I was led to a girl, a prisoner and a sort of normal conversation took place. And then she asked me what was I doing before the war. And like an idiot, I don’t know, I said, ‘I used to play the cello.’ She said, ‘That’s fantastic.You’ll be saved.’ I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Jon Wertheim: And that’s how you heard there was an orchestra?
“Anita Lasker-Wallfisch: Yeah.
“Jon Wertheim: And this is your salvation?
“Anita Lasker-Wallfisch: That was my salvation, yeah.
“The conductor of the orchestra was virtuoso violinist Alma Rose, niece of the famous Viennese composer, Gustav Mahler. Anita Lasker-Wallfisch said Rose, a prisoner, had an iron discipline and tried to focus attention away from the profound misery of the camp.
“Anita Lasker-Wallfisch: I remember that we were scared stiff of her. She was very much the boss. And she knew very well that if she did not succeed to make a reasonable orchestra there, we wouldn’t survive. So it was a tremendous responsibility this poor woman had.
“The orchestra members all lived together in a wooden barracks like this – in Block 12 at Birkenau – known as the Music Block.
“Anita Lasker-Wallfisch: We were based very near the crematoria. We could see everything that was going on.
“Jon Wertheim: You’re practicing your orchestra and you can see everything going on?
“Anita Lasker-Wallfisch: Yeah, I mean, once you are inside Auschwitz, you knew what was going on, you know.
“Jon Wertheim: How do you play music pretending to ignore everything going on around you?
“Anita Lasker-Wallfisch: You arrive in Auschwitz you are prepared to go to the gas chamber. Somebody puts a cello in your hand, and you have a chance of life. Are you going to say “I’m sorry I don’t play here I play in Carnegie Hall?” I mean, people have funny ideas about what it’s like to arrive in a place where you know you’re going to be killed.
“Jon Wertheim: What I hear you say is that your ability to play the cello saved your life.
“Anita Lasker-Wallfisch: Yeah, simple as that.
“The main function of the camp orchestras: playing marches for prisoners every day here at the main gate, a way, literally to set the tempo for a day of work. And a way to count the inmates.
“Jon Wertheim: Right here is where the men’s orchestra played?
“Francesco Lotoro: Yes there was like a procession and the orchestra played there.
“The orchestras played when new arrivals disembarked from trains at Birkenau, to give a sense of normalcy, tricking newcomers into thinking it was a hospitable place. This, when at the height of the killings, Nazis were murdering thousands of men, women, and children each day. Evidence of the scope and scale of the atrocity still exists here: Mountains of shoes, suitcases, glasses, shaving brushes, murder on an industrial scale.
“Auschwitz archivists showed us some of the instruments that were taken out of the camp by orchestra members at the end of the war and later donated to the museum. This clarinet, a violin, and an accordion, as well as some of the music they played.
“The orchestras gave concerts on Sundays for prisoners and for SS officers.
“Anita Lasker-Wallfisch remembers playing for the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele, known as ‘the angel of death.’ Mengele conducted medical experiments on prisoners. His notorious infirmary still stands just steps from the railroad tracks in Birkenau.
“Anita Lasker-Wallfisch: What was interesting is that these people, these arch criminals, were not uneducated people.
“Jon Wertheim: That this monstrous man could still appreciate Schumann. How do you reconcile that?
“Anita Lasker-Wallfisch: I don’t.
“Francesco Lotoro: And the point of connection of life and death is music. This is all we have about life in the camp. Life disappeared. We have only music. For me, music is the life that remained,” Wertheim wrote.