Holocaust Center to host, ‘Music from Auschwitz: A Concert’
Something joyful is the last thing that Patricia Hall expected to find while researching the manuscripts of music at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Poland.
But there it was.
Archived among the manuscripts of music arranged and performed by prisoners in the Nazi death camps was the manuscript for a buoyant foxtrot titled, “The Most Beautiful Time of Life.”
“I was particularly taken by it,” said Hall, a music theory professor at the University of Michigan. “Not because of its musical properties but because I couldn't imagine a more grotesquely incongruous title for music performed in a concentration camp. It made me sad to think about a song like that in that context.”
The arrangement also called for an extraordinary and unusual mix of instruments and it was written for dancing.
Who dances in a concentration camp?
As Hall later learned the music was originally composed by the German film composer Franz Grothe for a jazz ensemble. But was rearranged by prisoners at the Auschwitz I camp for the musicians they had available; four first violins, five second violins, a viola, two clarinets, a trombone and a tuba, who performed this arrangement and many others for Sunday concerts attended by SS Officers. Hall learned of one particularly sadistic SS member who would take out member after member from the orchestra, and shoot them.
“As a researcher of manuscripts (for nearly 40 years), I am used to working with very personal documents, such as diaries, intimate letters, and medical records,” Hall said, in an article describing her research. “What I had never encountered, however, was the painful irony of many of the song titles in the context of a concentration camp. Some examples include, ‘Letters That Never Arrived,' ‘Hour That One Can Never Forget,' and ‘Sing a Song When You're Sad.'
I found myself frequently stopping to mentally process this profound experience,” said Hall, whose research also led to the discovery of the musicians behind the compositions, two of whom signed their prisoner numbers to their work making it possible for Hall to track down their names.
Now, after more than 70 years of silence, the voices and stirring melodies of those imprisoned at Auschwitz will be brought to life by the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance during a sold out performance at The Zekelman Holocaust Center in Farmington Hills.
The university's student orchestra led by conductor Oriol Sans will perform the collected works interspersed with lines — spoken by singers — from testimonies and interviews with members of the Auschwitz I Men's Orchestra after the war.
Sans has inspired musicians and audiences across North America and Europe including the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. He is also the music director of the Detroit
Symphony Youth Orchestra, a position he's held since 2016. As its director, Sans has initiated collaborations with other musical institutions in the community such as the Young Artists Program at the Michigan Opera Theater.
“We are honored to welcome conductor Sans to the Zekelman Holocaust Center to lead the University of Michigan student orchestra through these beautiful and moving musical pieces,” said Rabbi Eli Mayerfield, CEO of the Zekelman Holocaust Center, which is a 55,000-square-foot museum and library archive that teaches about the senseless murder of millions and serves as a national leader in innovative genocide education through exhibits, video testimonies from survivors, films, paintings and a variety of other sources.
The Zekelman Holocaust Center is at 28123 Orchard Lake Rd., Farmington Hills. The center is wheelchair accessible and has free parking. For additional information visit holocaustcenter.org or call 248-553-2400.