Music
The Lost Music of the Holocaust
Published: 26 January 2023
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Prisoners in Nazi concentration camps made music; now it's being discovered and performed. More than 6 million people, most of them Jews, died in the Holocaust. The music they wrote as a temporary escape, however, did not die with them, thanks in part to the efforts 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.
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.
Saved by Music: a Holocaust Survivor's Story: 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 such as the one created by a young Jewish woman in a Nazi concentration camp in 1944.
Francesco Lotoro expressed "The miracle is that all of this could have been destroyed, could have been lost. And instead the miracle is that this music reaches us. Music is a phenomenon which wins. That's the secret of the concentration camps. No one can take it away. No one can imprison it. It seems unlikely, even impossible, that music could have been performed and composed at a place like this site of unspeakable evil, the most horrific mass murder in human history."
This is Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Nazi concentration camp in southern Poland. Set up by the Germans in 1940 as part of Hitler's "Final Solution," it became the largest center in the world for the extermination of Jews. More than a million men, women and children died here. For those who passed through this entrance, known as the "Gate of Death," these tracks were a path to genocide and terror.
Women and Children Rescued at the End of the Holocaust
After they disembarked from cattle cars, most were sent directly to their deaths in the gas chambers. The sounds of the camp included the screech of train brakes, haunting screams of families separated forever., the staccato orders barked by SS guards. But also in the air: the sound of music, the language of the gods. This piece, titled "Fantasy" was written for oboe and strings, composed by a prisoner in Poland in 1942."In some cases, we are in front of masterpieces that could have changed the path of musical language in Europe."
Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland Where Medical Experoiments Took Place
At Auschwitz, as at other camps, there were inmate orchestras, set up by the Nazis to play marches and entertain. There was also unofficial music, crafted in secret, a way of preserving some dignity where little otherwise existed. During the Holocaust, an entire generation of talented musicians, composers and virtuosos perished. 75 years later, Francesco Lotoro is breathing life into their work. Francesco Lotoro: "In some cases, we are in front of masterpieces that could have changed the path of musical language in Europe if they had been written in a free world."
Looking for Information on the Lost Musicians in Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, Israel
Francesco Lotoro's work may culminate in stirring musical performances, but that's just the last measure, so to speak. His rescue missions, largely self-financed, begin the old fashioned way, with lots of hard work, knocking on doors, and face-to-face meetings with survivors and their relatives. There are children who have inherited all the paper material from their dad who survived the camp and stored it. When I recovered it, it was literally infested with paper worms. So before taking it, a clean-up operation was required, a de-infestation.
Barletta, Italy
Lotoro grew up and still lives in Barletta, an ancient town on the Adriatic Coast of southern Italy. His modest home, which doubles as his office, is stuffed with tapes, audio cassettes, diaries and microfilm.
Grazia and Francesco Lotoro and his Wife Grazia
Aided by his wife, Grazia, who works at the local post office to support the family, Lotoro has collected and catalogued more than 8,000 pieces of music, including symphonies, operas, folk songs, and Gypsy tunes scribbled on everything from food wrapping to telegrams, even potato sacks. The prisoner who composed this piece used the charcoal given to him as dysentery medicine and toilet paper to write an entire symphony which was later smuggled out in the camp laundry. He was using his dysentery medication as a pen and he's using toilet paper as paper. And that's how he wrote a symphony. When you lost freedom, toilet paper and coal can be freedom. It's a testament to resourcefulness, how far artists will go to create. It's also a testament to the range of emotions that prisoners experienced.
Buchenwald Concentration Camp Prisoners Roll Call
Lotoro isn't just collecting this music, he's arranging it and sometimes finishing these works. "This is from 1944 in Buchenwald, where I found the music sheets for a March, Surely to be scored for orchestra. They're only the melodies. The tender composition was written by a pole while he was in Buchenwald Concentration Camp. If music like this isn't performed, it's as if it's still imprisoned in the camps. It hasn't been freed." This wasn't an obvious calling for an Italian who was raised Roman Catholic, but from age 15, Lotoro says, he felt the pull of another religion. He converted to Judaism and claims he has a Jewish soul. "There was a rabbi who explained to me that when a person converts to Judaism, in reality he doesn't convert. He goes back to being Jewish. Doing this research is possibly the most Jewish thing that I know. We Jews have a word which expresses this concept. Mitzvah. It is not something that someone tells you you must do, you know as a Jew that you must do it.
Theresienstadt Czech Concentration Camp
Lotoro's quest began in 1988 when he learned about the music created by prisoners in the Czech concentration camp Theresienstadt. The Nazis had set up the camp to fool the world into believing they were treating Jews humanely. Inmates were allowed to create and stage performances, some of which survive in this Nazi propoganda film. Lotoro was amazed by the level of musicianship and wondered what else was out there.
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum - Washington D.C.
He reached out to Bret Werb, music curator at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, in Washington D.C. Werb says Francesco Lotoro is building on the legacy of others who have searched for concentration camp music, but Lotoro is taking it to the next level, making the scores performable. "People in concentration camps turn to music because it helped people to cope. It helped people to escape. It gave people something to do. It allowed them to comment on the experiences that they were undergoing. Bret Werb there is no doubt that being a member of an orchestra increased your chances of survival.
Anita Lasker-Wallfisch - Holocaust Surviver
Anita Lasker-Wallfisch is one of the last surviving members of the women's orchestra at Auschwitz. She is now 94 years old and lives in London. "We heard everything that was going on there only we didn't – still tried not to believe it. But by the time I arrived there, in fact, I knew it was a reality, gas chambers and... yeah... I came prepared for the worst, yes." Her parents, German Jews, were taken away in 1942 and she never saw them again. She was just 18 when she arrived at the death camp a year later. "We were put in some sort of block and waited all night, and the next morning there was a sort of welcome ceremony and there were lots of people sitting there doing the reception business. Like tattooing you, taking your hair off, et cetera. That's all done by prisoners themselves The numbers are still visible on her left arm." "I was led to a girl also 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," she said. I had no idea what she was talking about. That's how you heard there was an orchestra. That was my salvation".
Alma Rosé - Virtuoso Violinist and Holocaust Victim (November 3, 1906 - April 4, 1944)
The conductor of the orchestra was virtuoso violinist alma rose, niece of the famous Viennese composer, Gustav Mahler. Anita Lasker-Wallfisch said that Rose, a prisoner herself, had an iron discipline and tried to focus attention away from the profound misery of the camp. "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."
Auschwitz-Birkenau
"The orchestra members all lived together in a wooden barracks - in Block 12 at Birkenau – known as the Music Block. We were based very near the crematoria. We could see everything that was going on. I mean, once you are inside Auschwitz, you knew what was going on. When 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. My ability to play the cello saved my life. The main function of the camp was 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. The orchestras also 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. The orchestras also 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.
Francesco Lotoro Reviewing Music Sheets from the Holocaust
Music may be the life that remained, music like this 1942 piece titled "Fantasy", but it is the people behind the music that animate Francesco Lotoro's long and ambitious project. Their compositions created at a time when fundamental values were in danger. Today, as the number of Holocaust survivors dwindles, it's more often their descendants Lotoro tracks down. For 30 years, Lotoro has been on an all-consuming quest to collect music created by prisoners during the Holocaust. As he travels the world, mostly on his own dime, he is both a detective and an archaeologist, digging through the past to recover and discover actual artifacts. But maybe even more important, he meets with survivors and their family members to excavate the stories behind the music. Waldemar Kropinski, the son of Jozef Kropinski, perhaps the most prolific and versatile composer in the entire camp constellation lives in Nuremberg, Germany who told us about the work of his father during the Holocaust.
Waldemar Kropinski says his father's work was totally unknown before Francesco Lotoro brought it to light. "I thought it was something that was of no interest to anyone because my father was already dead and not even one camp composition of his was performed in Poland. Jozef Kropinski, a Roman Catholic, was 26 when he was caught working for the Polish resistance and sent to Auschwitz, where he became first violinist in the men's orchestra and started secretly composing, first for himself, and then for other prisoners. In 1942, he wrote this piece that he titled "Resignation". Kropinski wrote hundreds of pieces of music during his four years of imprisonment, at Auschwitz and later at Buchenwald, including tangos, waltzes, love songs, even an opera in two parts. Still more astonishing, he composed most of them at night, by candlelight, in a tiny room the Nazis diabolically called a pathology lab, where during the day, bodies were dismembered. Other prisoners had secured the space for kropinski so he could have a quiet place to compose.
Waldemar explains his father wrote a few feet from piles of dead bodies, a suite of holiday songs. Waldemar says his father did it all to help raise the spirits of his fellow prisoners. "His music was really touching hearts and very positive. It was important that the prisoners could hear something else in this time, something touching, so that they could go back in their memory to the old times, and feel encouraged. In April 1945, as the Allies approached Buchenwald, the camp was evacuated and inmates were forced on a death march. Kropinski was able to smuggle out his violin and hundreds of pieces of music, some hidden in his violin case and others in a secret coat pocket, but only 117 survive today. On the march, he sacrificed the rest to build a fire for his fellow prisoners. He was a man who obviously suffered a lot in the camps, but made himself available to others, creating music. He was a man who must be understood not only as a musician but as someone who created solidarity, created unison in the camps. "These musicians, for me, wanted only one desire: that this music can be performed."
Old Town Square in Krakow, Poland
One of Lotoro's recovery missions includes the work of Aleksander Kullisiewicz who was originally from the medieval city of Krakow, one of the oldest towns in southern Poland. Christoph Kulisiewicz is the son of Aleksander Kulisiewicz, a Pole imprisoned by the Gestapo for anti-fascist writings and deported to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp in 1939. During more than five years of imprisonment, Kulisiewicz became something of a "camp troubadour," helping inmates cope with their hunger and despair, and performing songs at secret gatherings. But he didn't just compose and sing. He also used his extraordinary powers of recall, memorizing hundreds of songs by other prisoners, which he dictated to a nurse after the war, so they could be recorded.
