Title ‘How can genuine musical sentiment and mass murder comfortably co-exist?’
Introduction
This paper will approach three main areas. First: to place music of the orchestras of Auschwitz and Terezin in a historical, sociological and cultural context. Second: to investigate how music was a form of healing and a form of torture. Thirdly: to study the remarkable lives of Viktor Ullmann and Alma Rose (Gustave Mahler’s niece). Viktor Ullmann was in the Terezin camp in which he composed a great deal, some of which this essay will discuss. Alma Rose was in Auschwitz and survived. Both composed music during their time in the different concentration camps. They found healing in music in the traumatic and horrifying time that was the Holocaust. …show more content…
This paper will give a brief overview of Hitler and the Nazis and their ideologies, mainly anti-Semitism and how that hatred filtered down into music. The type of music that was played in Auschwitz and Terezin is an important factor. The songs and marches were of a German nationalist nature, this was to taunt or make fun of the mainly Jewish prisoners. Music was used a form of intimidation in both these camps by SS soldiers.
Terezin is a popular area of study when discussing music and the holocaust, as it was a model camp and used for propaganda purposes. Music flourished there. Torture wasn’t as prevalent in Terezin as it was in Auschwitz. Auschwitz is not a primary place of study for this topic, which makes it all the more interesting to examine it in this context. Other camps certainly had orchestras and music as a form of torture but Auschwitz and Terezin were two of the leading …show more content…
This dissertation investigates how music and torture could co-exist in Auschwitz and Terezin, during the years 1940-1945. This paper examines how music can be a form of healing but also a form of torture. The Nazis used music as a form of abuse to deceive, humiliate and control the prisoners. The SS guards gassed thousands of Jews daily to the sound of orchestras playing sweet melodies, how can such a paradox exist? However music was a form of healing to both the SS officers and to the innocent prisoners. Composers and performers such as Viktor Ullmann and Alma Rose confided in music as a form of comfort and