On November 28, 2023, a historic concert took place at the Royal Festival Hall in London. The London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski, performed music that was composed in Auschwitz by prisoners of the Nazi death camp. The music, which had been lost for decades, was rediscovered and restored by an international team of researchers and musicians.
The concert, titled “Voices of the Holocaust”, featured four works that were written between 1941 and 1944 by Jewish composers who were imprisoned in Auschwitz. The composers were Pavel Haas, Gideon Klein, Viktor Ullmann, and Zikmund Schul. They were part of a group of artists and intellectuals who were sent to a special barrack known as the “Family Camp”, where they were allowed to create and perform music, theater, and poetry for a limited time. The Nazis used this as a propaganda tool to deceive the Red Cross and the outside world about the true nature of the camp. However, the music also served as a source of resistance and hope for the prisoners, who expressed their emotions, memories, and identities through their art.
The music was smuggled out of the camp by survivors, but it was largely forgotten and neglected until the 1990s, when a few scholars and musicians began to research and revive it. One of them was Francesco Lotoro, an Italian pianist and musicologist, who dedicated his life to finding and restoring the music of the Holocaust. He traveled around the world, collecting manuscripts, recordings, testimonies, and documents from archives, libraries, museums, and private collections. He also interviewed survivors and their relatives, and transcribed and edited the scores. He founded the Institute of Concentrationary Music Literature in Barletta, Italy, where he amassed a vast collection of over 8,000 musical works from various concentration camps and ghettos.
Lotoro collaborated with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Festival Hall to organize the concert, which was part of a larger project called “The Music of the Holocaust”. The project aims to raise awareness and educate the public about the music and the composers who created it under the most horrific circumstances. The concert was also supported by the Holocaust Educational Trust, the Association of Jewish Refugees, and the World Jewish Congress.
The concert was attended by a large and diverse audience, including dignitaries, celebrities, academics, students, and Holocaust survivors and their families. The music was performed with skill and sensitivity by the orchestra and the soloists, who included soprano Annette Dasch, violinist Daniel Hope, and pianist Konstantin Lifschitz. The music ranged from classical to jazz, from folk to avant-garde, reflecting the diverse backgrounds and influences of the composers. The music was also accompanied by historical images, videos, and texts that provided context and narration.
