By James Conlon

“Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate… Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones?” – Siegfried Sassoon

After 1945, those who performed, wrote or taught classical music worked in a culture scarred by omissions. These were not of their making but were part of the legacy of the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany. With its racist ideology and systematic suppression—particularly (although not exclusively) of Jewish musicians, artists and writers—the Third Reich silenced two generations of composers and, with them, an entire musical heritage.

By Harald Kisiedu

At Terezín, in what is now in the Czech Republic, opportunities for the performance of jazz and other forms of popular music - operettas, revues and cabaret music, for instance - emerged in the wake of the SS's decision to turn the concentration camp into a “model ghetto.” Throughout its existence, Terezín served a dual function within National Socialist policies - and specifically, those of Heinrich Himmler. Although it was originally conceived as a transit camp for Bohemian and Moravian Jews on their way to extermination camps in the General Government area, Terezín also fulfilled the propagandistic function of keeping up the appearance of Jewish autonomy and the “normality” of ghetto life. But this make-believe autonomy of the Jewish administration, presided over by the Jewish Council of Elders, was entirely subservient to the SS's dictatorship over Terezín and its prisoners.