Play something wonderful for us,You Jews Love Your
Music,Here in Terezin, Where nothing grows but
numbers
Musicians are Never Expecting Exile: Music is Exile
The Musicians of Terezin were a fellowship of musicians unique in history. Nearly all had been exiled from positions of prominence in Berlin, Munich and other cultural centers of Germany. Among them were such as Hans Krasa, Viktor Ullman and Pavel Haas, whose music was already recognized. One of the reasons many musicians were sent to Terezin was that they were visible: Terezin was a 'showcase' for the Nazis---while the suffering there was great and most were eventually deported to Auschwitz or its sub-camps, the Nazis kept portions of Terezin for public show: when dignitaries visited, the musicians played, when the Red Cross visited to determine conditions, the musicians were called to perform: it was the one place in Europe where Jewish Music was still freely heard (for the most part.) Terezin turned to its music and art to survive the brutality of the Nazi incarceration: there was Chamber and Orchestra Music at Terezin, piano recitals, compositions and quintets.
A Children's Choir/Theatre performed over 50 performances of "Brundibar" an opera about Children trying to usurp a local 'ogre'. It held a veiled fist against the tyranny which had brought them there. The Children were not alone in their metaphors of resistance: 'The Emperor of Atlantis' provided a relief of resistance in adult performances, and a musical/opera about bicycles was a raised fist of freedom as well. As the notoriety of the disappearance of the more prominent musicians disappeared, most of the Musicians were deported to Auschwitz and smaller labor/extermination camps such as furstengrube. Used occasionally for Music in the camps as slaves departed for labor, or on the whim of Nazi officials, Music gave no refuge from the gas chambers: many of the musicians of Terezin and their families were killed at Auschwitz. A few survived the war and went on to become bright and even famous musicians in America and Europe: their music still lives on. The Terezin Chamber Orchestra in Boston and other groups keep the music written in Terezin alive.
