In Nov 1938, pianist Lisa Jura (born #OTD in 1924) had her piano lessons cancelled. In August 1939, she boarded a train and said goodbye to her parents after her father secured a single ticket on the Kindertransport.
www.holocaustmuseuml...
Synagogue organist Erwin Jospe was born #OTD in 1907. In 1935 he was expelled from the RKK. In 1937 he moved to the US and became musical director and organist of a large reform church in Cleveland.
www.lexm.uni-hamburg...
Isa Vermehren (born #OTD in 1918) volunteered to support the German troops as an entertainer between 1940 and 1943. Due to her brother's defection she was taken to Ravensbrück, where she was locked in an isolation cell.
holocaustmusic.ort.o...
Author and producer Norbert Frýd was born #OTD in 1913. In Nov 1942, Frýd was deported to Terezin and was involved in its cultural life. He wrote nursery rhymes which he and Karel Reiner arranged into a set of children's songs performed in the ghetto.
en.wikipedia.org/wik...
Pianist, Schlager composer, polyglot, language teacher and bank cashier Georg Heinrich Blaustein (born #OTD in 1895) applied to emigrate to Israel but was ultimately lost.
www.lexm.uni-hamburg...
Permission from Göring allowed Heinz Tietjen to continue to employ Leo Blech (born #OTD 1871) despite his Jewish background. Dismissed "for reasons of age", he exiled to Riga as the first guest of the National Opera conducting numerous successful operas.
holocaustmusic.ort.o...
Rudi Goguel (born #OTD in 1908) was a German author, best known for his resistance to the Nazi regime. After 1933 he was arrested and taken to the concentration camp Börgermoor where he composed the melody of Moorsoldatenlied.
holocaustmusic.ort.o...
Record producer Alfred Lion was born #OTD in 1908. He left Germany in 1933 for South America and by 1938, Lion was living in New York, fine-tuning his jazz ear by frequenting record stores, bars, and clubs.
en.wikipedia.org/wik...
Jazz musician Walter Würzburger was born #OTD in 1914. In 1933 his music lecturers were dismissed and the jazz class he was attending was shut-down. He moved to Paris then, in 1939 went into exile in Singapore and from there he was deported to Australia.
https://wurzburger.org/
Polish singer and actress Wiera Gran (Dwojra Grynberg) was born #OTD in 1916. Her escape from the Warsaw Ghetto inspired rumour on the part of Jonas Turkow, an actor and director, who claimed she had collaborated with the Nazis.
en.wikipedia.org/wik...
Dutch composer and conductor Sem Dresden (born #OTD in 1881) was compelled by Dutch collaborators to give up his role as director of the Den Haag Conservatory because of his Jewish origin. He continued to compose more than ten opus numbers during the war.
leosmitfoundation.or...
Composer Nicholas Brodszky (born #OTD in 1905) fled persecution from Russia then again from Nazis. He escaped to the UK and lived in exile for a decade before emmigrating to the US. Five of his songs were nominated for Academy Awards.
en.wikipedia.org/wik...
German pianist, conductor and composer Victor Hollaender was born #OTD in 1866. In 1934, Hollaender followed his son Friedrich into exile in Hollywood.
de.wikipedia.org/wik...
French composer Germaine Tailleferre (born #OTD 1892) was the only female composers in Les Six. At the outbreak of WWII, she was forced to leave most of her scores in Grasse to escape across Spain to Portugal and finally to Philadelphia.
en.wikipedia.org/wik...
American rock singer and producer Genya Ravan was born in Łódź #OTD in 1940 and emigrated to the US in 1947, with her parents and one sister. They were her only family members who had survived the Holocaust. Her two brothers died.
en.wikipedia.org/wik...
Cantor Gershon Sirota died #OTD in 1943. He was in Warsaw at the outbreak of the war and, although he could easily have left, he remained there to be with his family. Living in the Warsaw ghetto they all died together in the uprising in 1943.
holocaustmusic.ort.o...
Musician Emanuel Max Schönfeld was born #OTD in 1898. He was sent to Terezin where he played in the Terezin band. On 28 Sep 1944 he was deported to Auschwitz and killed.
www.holocaust.cz/en/...
The cousin of Władysław Szpilman, pianist and composer Leo Spellman, was born #OTD in 1913. Detained in Ostrowiec, he founded an orchestra and gave music lessons there. In Oct 1942 he escaped with his wife after learning the ghetto was to be liquidated.
www.ushmm.org/inform...
On 5th Sept 1939, Gregor Piatigorsky (born #OTD in 1903), his wife and baby daughter took the last ship leaving France, just escaping Hitler’s invasion. They settled in NY, where Piatigorsky had already bought a house.
http://piatigorskyfo
Composer Artur Schnabel was born #OTD in 1882. Being Jewish, he left Berlin in 1933 and lived in England giving masterclasses at Tremezzo on Lake Como in Italy, before moving to the United States in 1939. In 1944, he became a naturalised citizen of the US.
de.wikipedia.org/wik...
Janot Roskin was born #OTD in 1884. He worked as a chorister and prayer leader in his youth and collected folk songs while travelling through Vitebsk region. In 1935 he was expelled from the Reichsmusikkammer and emigrated to the US shortly after.
www.lexm.uni-hamburg...
German-British composer and conductor Benno Bardi (born Poswiansky #OTD in 1890) was persecuted not only for racial but also, as a Mason, for religious ideological reasons. After an SS attack he left Berlin on Jul 27 1933 for Cairo with his wife.
www.lexm.uni-hamburg...
Director of music, composer and bassoonist Martin Levin was born in Dresden #OTD in 1895. He wrote several operettas and was repetiteur at Dresden State opera. He was deported from Berlin and is considered missing in Litzmannstadt.
www.lexm.uni-hamburg...
Resistance activist, poet and writer Eva Lippold was born #OTD in 1909. In Jauer Prison, she had began composing poems and she wrote and composed songs. Though becoming desperately ill, Eva was eventually released and survived until liberation.
de.wikipedia.org/wik...
Benedictine Catholic priest, church musician, composer and poet Gregor Schwake (born #OTD in 1892) was a determined opponent of National Socialism. Arrested by the Gestapo on 6 Oct 1943, he was transferred to the Dachau in Jan 1944 where he led the choir.
de.wikipedia.org/wik...
After the Anschluss Karl Alwin (born #OTD 1909) lost his job immediately. He emigrated to the USA, where he was initially supported by the singer Lotte Lehmann. He found work as a song accompanist and during 1939/40 he conducted at the Chicago Civic Opera.
en.wikipedia.org/wik...
Actor Fritz Lerner was born #OTD in 1906. He was deported to Terezin Nov 1942 then Auschwitz Sep 1944. He was part of the cast that performed Viktor Ullmann’s Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke. He died in Auschwitz 30 Oct 1944.
trace.tennessee.edu/...
Werner Wolf Glaser (born #OTD 1913) lost his job as a répétiteur at the Chemnitz opera house after only a few months in Feb 1932 because of his Jewish origin. He returned to Cologne to work as a choirmaster but on Apr 9 1933 he went into exile in France.
www.helm-baynov-verl...
Composer, pianist and conductor Franz Mittler (born #OTD in 1893) was popular in Vienna in the 20s and 30s. On Mar 12 1938 he emigrated to New York, where, in 1939, he gave a concert for President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
de.wikipedia.org/wik...
Bass singer Karel Berman was born #OTD 1919. Sent to Terezin on 6 Mar 1943, he sang in operas and recitals and was cast as 'Death' in Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis. Transported to Auschwitz on 28 Sep 1944, he was liberated from the Allach camp.
holocaustmusic.ort.o...