Introduction: Music in Exile

Hunger and Death, disease and fear: these were the daily fare of life in the Jewish Ghettos during the Shoah. Very few had jobs, and the ones who did, were put to hard, menial labor for little if any pay. Living on less than 800 calories a day, and crowded into small apartments, several families to a room, life in the Ghettos was a nightmare. One would think that the last thing on the minds of the inhabitants of the Ghetto would be Music or Art, but it was the Music and Art of the Ghetto which so fed the Soul, that the daily starvation and terror on occasion became bearable. Eli Wiesel, the famous Shoah survivor and author once wrote, "When we are mad we sing". It is not the singing of madness, but the singing that combats madness: that gives life to the Singer. Music and Song for moments, lifted starving, faint spirited people out of the horror of daily life in the Ghetto, and the constant expectation of 'deportation to the East'; or in truth to the Killing and Atrocity Centers.

The Music was plentiful as long as there was rosin for violin bows. It ranged from the Music of the Street in which protests could be veiled in Yiddish, even mocking HItler and the Nazis behind a language belonging to the Ashkenazic Jews, all the way to the finest Classical and Operatic Music Europe had to offer by Exiles whose music the Third Reich had declared, "Entarte Kunst", or "Degenerate". Recitals flourished behind closed doors and away from the ears of soldiers. In Terezin, a new music flourished on the way to Auschwitz: some of the best composers, pianists, teachers, and other musicians performed Opera, Children's Opera and Chorales, formed Orchestras, trios, quartets and quintets and great singers sang. Victor Ullmann, Krasa and Pavel Haas were interred there, along with many others. Most of the Musicians of Terezin were sent to Auschwitz, and most died there.

A handful of Musicians escaped to America and other Cities in Europe. Bruno Walter, Paul Hindemith, and Arnold Schoenberg are among the great European tradition of exiled musicians which came to the US and changed the face of contemporary Classical Music (12 tone row) and provided the foundation of truly excellent music in the Movie Industry. What Germany exiled was our gain, and built the face of modern American Music.

Far more musicians died, sent often to the Concentration Camps first, where they played for the victims of Shoah deboarding cattle cars and for the slave labor as they left the grounds in the morning for the quarries. When the required Music was finished, the Nazis killed the Musicians also.

Of the few who survived, most expatriated, leaving behind lifetimes worth of work and composition. They had lost their positions as heads of Opera Houses and the Great German Symphonies. One well known Music Professor, in trying to escape quickly from the captivity of the Nazis, left behind close to 30 years of manuscripts and compositions with a friend for safe-keeping till the war's end. The house in which the compositions were kept burned during a bombing, and the Composer's entire Life Work, save for a few pieces were utterly wiped out.   The Nazis tried to gain control over all copyrights and licenses of musicians in aliyah, also.

Included in this section you will find samples of songs sung in the streets of the Ghettos, information on the Music of Terezin, lullabies and folksongs and the songs of the Resistance Movement. Information on operas, symphonies and other music has been included also. For information on Music in the Shoah in general, please see