An orchestra forced to accompany prisoners to their execution at Mauthausen, Austria, in 1942. Yad Vashem
In Nazi concentration camps, music was a weapon of torment and resistance. SS officers forced Jewish musicians, like violinist Shony Braun, to compete in humiliating life or death performances. They commanded orchestras in Auschwitz to play loud enough to cover up screams from gas chambers. Some prisoners, like Aleksander Kulisiewicz, turned to music to secretly record daily life, mock the Nazis, and spiritually escape the horrors. Each lyric, an act of defiance. Each note, proof that the human spirit could not be silenced.
Join us to experience works artists risked their lives to create during the Holocaust to expose life in Nazi camps and remember the victims.
Chairs
Amy Agami and Bill Schwartz
Host Committee
Ann and Jay Davis
Leah and Richard Davis
Karen Lansky Edlin and Andrew Edlin
Lynne and Jack Halpern
The Hertz Family—Lila and Doug Hertz, Amy and Ronnie Agami, Emily and Michael Hertz
The Selig Family—Linda and Steve Selig, Cathy and Steve Kuranoff, Amy and Bryan Lewis, Erica and Greg Lewis, Stephanie and Blake Selig, Mindy and David Shoulberg
Betty and Alan Sunshine
Helen and David Zalik
Speakers
Dr. Lindsay MacNeill, Historian, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Dr. Barbara Milewski, Daniel Underhill Professor of Music and department chair, Swarthmore College
Live performance
Joe Alterman Trio
For more information, please contact the Museum’s Midwest Regional Office at midwest@ushmm.org.