Coco Schumann
German jazz guitarist whose musical abilities helped him to survive Theresienstadt and Auschwitz
COCO SCHUMANN, who has died aged 93, was a German jazz musician who survived the Holocaust despite having passed through three concentration camps; he always insisted that, had it not been for music, he would never have made it.
Heinz Jacob Schumann was born in Berlin on May 14 1924, of mixed parentage. His mother was Jewish and his father had converted from Christianity to the Jewish faith. He first encountered swing music at the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936 and was instantly captivated.
An uncle gave him an ancient drum kit, which he taught himself to play, and while still in his mid-teens he was performing in dives and cabarets around the city. He also taught himself to play a guitar, having bought an instrument with his earnings.
These were years when the Nazis were increasingly intent on suppressing all forms of what they called Entartete Kunst (degenerate art), with jazz near the top of the list. But not only did Schumann carry on playing, he removed the yellow star, which all Jews were ordered to wear, while doing so.
Once, when police were chasing a fugitive and entered a bar in which he was playing, Schumann said to the senior officer: “Why not arrest me? I’m under age and Jewish!” The officer, perhaps noting his bright blue eyes and cheeky grin, simply ignored him.
His luck ran out in 1943, when he was arrested for playing degenerate music and having relations with Aryan girls. Some of the luck returned when was sent to Theresienstadt, a camp inside an old fortress in Czechoslovakia. The Germans were busy refurbishing it into a “model ghetto” which could be put on show to counteract ugly rumours of slave labour and gas chambers.
Music for “free time entertainment” had been ordered, and Schumann found himself playing drums with some of the best jazz musicians from pre-war Europe, including the clarinettist Fritz Weiss, “Germany’s Benny Goodman”. The band was called the Ghetto Swingers.
A Red Cross commission duly arrived and was shown around. A propaganda film was shot, in which the Ghetto Swingers made an appearance. By the end of September 1944, the visitors had left and the whole elaborately staged illusion was swept away. The Ghetto Swingers, Schumann among them, were put on a train to Auschwitz.
On arrival, the Theresienstadt prisoners were split up into platoons and marched away. Some, Fritz Weiss among them, went straight to the gas chamber. Others, including Schumann’s group, were left standing on the parade ground. An order was given: “Musicians one pace forward.”
Schumann and a few others were taken to join the band which was employed to calm the atmosphere when a fresh trainload of prisoners arrived. At other times it played simply for the amusement of the guards. Schumann’s version of La Paloma was a great favourite. It earned him extra food and warm clothes.
Towards the end of the war, as the Red Army advanced towards Poland, Schumann was transferred to Dachau, where he became seriously ill. He slowly recovered following the liberation of the camp by the US Army in April 1945. On his return home, he learnt that, although most of his family were dead, both his parents had survived. His mother had remained hidden while her husband reported her killed in a fire.
Schumann married shortly afterwards. His wife, Gertraud, had been a prisoner in Theresienstadt in the days of the Ghetto Swingers. He resumed his musical career, now playing the electric guitar.
In 1950, to get away from painful memories, the couple emigrated to Australia, but they returned after four years. For a long time Schumann refused to talk about his experiences, declaring: “I am a musician who was imprisoned in concentration camps – not a concentration camp survivor who plays music.”
Later, however, he agreed to be interviewed in order to bear witness. In 1997 he published Der Ghetto Swinger, recounting his experiences. A musical production of the same title was staged in Hamburg in 2002.
Schumann’s wife predeceased him.
Coco Schumann, born May 14 1924, died January 28 2018