Murdered by Hitler, But Their Songs Survive: Local Musicians Perform Pieces by Holocaust Victims

It was May 1, 1945. 16-year-old Julia Erdely was supposed to die.

Part of a Nazi death march hurrying concentration camp prisoners to camps farther from the front, Erdely was near Munich when the advancing army of Gen. George S. Patton freed her.

"It is my birthday, my second birthday," said Erdely, now 82, of Homewood. "It is not what my mother give to me. It is what the liberation army give to me. It is my second chance at life."

The 82-year-old will spend her 66th birthday at a concert of music written by those who did not get a second chance.

At 4 p.m. Sunday, in Olympia Fields will host a concert of music written by or honoring the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust with a focus on those who died in the Theresienstadt concentration camp outside of Prague. The event is part of Holocaust Remembrance Day.

"Six million people died in a genocide for no crime other than being who they are, being Jewish," said Rabbi Paul Caplan. "Either their deaths mean nothing and we forget it or we give meaning to their deaths."

A Show Camp

Theresienstadt, better known as Terezin, was a ghetto and a way station for Jews bound for the death camps of the Holocaust.

Although thousands died at Terezin and thousands more sent to Auschwitz, Nazi propaganda portrayed Terezin as an ideal cultural community for the Jewish people.

"It was a show camp. The Nazis were using this to show the International Red Cross they had beautiful orchestras and children’s choirs," Caplan said.

The truth was much darker. One of the pieces that will be performed at the temple Sunday was composed by Terezin prisoner Viktor Ullmann. It debuted at the camp a few weeks before Ullmann was shipped to Auschwitz, where he later died in the gas chambers, said Linda Veleckis Nussbaum, executive director of the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra and one of the musicians who will be performing Sunday.

"It was pretty much performed once and then silenced for many, many, many years," Nussbaum said.

Similarly, a video of children performing Brundibar by prisoner Hans Krasa will be shown. The video, which you can see in this article, was shot by the Nazi propaganda department as part of its efforts to dupe the Red Cross.

"It's really disturbing when you realize that within weeks, most of those children were dead," Nussbaum said.

Coincidence and Kaddish

Sunday's concert falling on Erdely's "second birthday" (Erdely and her daughter will light candles as part of the remembrance) was just one of the coincidences in this concert, Caplan said.

During last year's High Holy Days, Caplan on an impulse asked some of the musicians if anyone happened to know Ravel's Kaddish, based on a Jewish prayer of mourning.

Nussbaum, one of the violinists performing at the temple, not only knew the piece, but knew it well. The rabbi and violinist started talking, found a shared interest in the music of Terezin and the concert was born, Caplan said. The Kaddish will be the last of the five works performed in the 70-minute concert.

"The best way to remember those who have passed is to say their name and play their music," Nussbaum said. "By keeping this music alive we keep the memory of not only these artists but also of six million alive.”