‘A Voice for the Silenced’ and the Terezin composers lost to the Holocaust

Photo: Terezin doorway
An archway in the Terezín concentration camp. Richard Mortel/Flickr

World War II and the Holocaust ended the lives of some of Europe’s most talented composers and nearly silenced their music.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the Nazi concentration camp liberations. In honor of this and Holocaust Remembrance Day on Thursday, April 24, CPR Classical is broadcasting a 5-hour radio documentary series called A Voice for the Silenced, Music Lost in the Holocaust. Hear it Monday through Friday, April 21-25 at 7 p.m.

The five-part series is co-hosted by CPR Classical’s Monika Vischer and conductor James Conlon -- who founded the OREL Foundation to champion recovered music from Holocaust-era composers. The series first aired in 2005 and is now part of the archival library at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

On Thursday, Holocaust Remembrance Day, the series features an interview with the late Ela Weissberger, who passed away in 2018 at the age of 87. She was one of the last survivors of the Terezin ghetto.

Listen to the series throughout Colorado and online. “A Voice for the Silenced” will also be available on-demand at cprclassical.org after the full series airs. “A Voice for the Silenced” airs on CPR Classical at 7 p.m. Monday through Friday April 21-25, in honor of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps as well as the Days of Remembrance.

Explore below for a sampling of music by composers imprisoned in Terezín, and some of the pieces written there, none of whom lived to see the end of World War II and scroll to the bottow to find our Holocaust Remembrance Spotify playlist

Viktor Ullmann (1898-1944)

Jiří Mělnický/Wikimedia Commons

Ullmann was a gifted composer and conductor who studied under Arnold Schoenberg in Vienna and Alexander von Zemlinsky in Prague. When Ullmann was deported to the Terezín ghetto in 1942, the Nazis gave him an unusual assignment, telling him to compose and organize concerts there.

He composed prolifically at Terezín, writing music that included piano sonatas, a string quartet and an opera, “The Emperor of Atlantis.” The opera’s plot offered a veiled criticism of Hitler and the Nazis, and Nazi authorities halted the Terezín production before it could be performed. “The Emperor of Atlantis” saw its world premiere in 1975 (and a memorable Colorado performance in 2013).

Here’s a performance of his String Quartet No. 3, composed while Ullmann was imprisoned in Terezín in 1943.

Hans Krasa (1899-1944)

The Czech composer may be best remembered for “Brundibar,” a 40-minute children’s opera he wrote in 1938. The piece, which tells the story of children trying to find money to help feed their sick mother, was the last music Krasa completed before the Nazis sent him to Terezín in 1942.

In Terezín, “Brundibar” found new life. Krasa reworked the score for the instruments on hand in the ghetto. He and other prisoners staged dozens of performances. The symbolic elements in the story -- the main characters defeat a tyrannical antagonist and sing a victory march -- appealed to a crowd that had been imprisoned under Nazi rule. Krasa also continued to write new music in Terezín.

Listen to his Passacaglia and Fugue for String Trio: 

Gideon Klein (1919-1945) 

Like Ullmann and Krasa, Klein continued to compose and play piano after being deported to Terezín in 1941. He enthusiastically supported other artists at Terezin, encouraging Krasa, Ullmann and other composers to continue writing.

Because of his relative youth, he was sent to the Fürstengrube concentration camp in Poland and put to work as a coal miner. He died there before the end of the war.

Watch an Israeli Chamber Project performance of his String Trio, written in 1944: 

Pavel Haas (1899-1944)   

Haas distinguished himself first as a protege of composer Leos Janacek. In the 1930s, he became interested in jazz music and began working elements into his pieces.

Haas composed the piece “Study for Strings” in Terezín in 1943. It saw frequent performances in the ghetto and continues to be performed today. 

Ilse Weber (1903-1944)    

Weber worked in the children’s infirmary at Terezin after being sent there in 1942. Before the war, she had been a poet and a children’s author. While she never worked as a professional musician, in Terezín she began setting some of her poems to simple melodies. She’d sing them and accompany herself on guitar.

Here’s “Lullaby,” performed by mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter:  

Recommended Resources

Ela Stein Weissberger, Terezin concentration camp survivor

Memorial Terezín, The Ghetto Museum in Terezín, Czech Republic

Terezin Music Foundation

Jewish Virtual Library: Theresienstadt: The Model Ghetto

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Holocaust Encyclopedia: Theresienstadt

Survivors of the Shoah, Visual History Foundation

Jewish Music Institute of SOAS University of London

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