Music in the Holocaust: Confronting Life in the Nazi Ghettos and Camps

Abstract

THE existence of music in the Holocaust seems incongruous. Is it not incomprehensible that music, commonly regarded as the most sublime expression of the human spirit, could function in an atmosphere of mass murder and destruction, and even play an active role? Yet musical activity flourished in the ghettos and in the camps, initiated officially by the Nazis and clandestinely by their victims. Shirli Gilbert offers the first detailed, scholarly account in English of the role of music among the communities imprisoned under Nazism, and, as she clarifies in her Introduction, she focuses not just on the Jewish plight, but also on the non-Jewish victims. The book documents the wide scope of activities in some of the most important internment centres in Nazi-occupied Europe, ranging from institutionalised music-making—orchestras, choirs, theatres and chamber groups—to a wide range of informal and spontaneous music-making by inmates and the creation of a large number of songs and pieces. On a deeper level, the book is a social history using music as an accessible medium to study the lives of individuals and communities. As Gilbert states: ‘Music opens a unique window onto the internal world of those communities, offering insight into how they understood, interpreted, and responded to their experiences at the time’.

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