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

-Reveals the role of music in Nazi concentration camps.
-Examines orchestras, choirs, communal sing-songs, and cabarets, amongst others.
-Shows how music contributes to our broader understanding of the Holocaust and the experiences of its victims.

In "Music in the Holocaust" Shirli Gilbert provides the first large-scale, critical account of the role of music amongst communities imprisoned under Nazism. She documents a wide scope of musical activities, ranging from orchestras and chamber groups to choirs, theatres, communal sing-songs, and cabarets, in some of the most important internment centres in Nazi-occupied Europe, including Auschwitz and the Warsaw and Vilna ghettos. Gilbert is also concerned with exploring the ways in which music - particularly the many songs that were preserved - contribute to our broader understanding of the Holocaust and the experiences of its victims. Music in the Holocaust is, at its core, a social history, taking as its focus the lives of individuals and communities imprisoned under Nazism. Music opens a unique window on to the internal world of those communities, offering insight into how they understood, interpreted, and responded to their experiences at the time.

CONTENIDO:

List of illustrations
List of music examples
Note on the music examples
Abbreviations

Introduction: Redeeming music. "Spiritual resistance" and beyond
1. "Have compassion, Jewish hearts": Music in the Warsaw gettho
2. Vilna: Politicians and partisans
3. Songs confront the past: Life in Sachsenhausen
4. Fragments of humanity: Music in Auschwitz
Epilogue

Appendix: Repertoire listings

Glossary
Bibliography
Index