Terezín Chamber Music Foundation perpetuates work of 1940s Theresienstadt Camp composers

By Susie Davidson

Advocate Correspondent

BOSTON - Some of Europe’s most talented artists, musicians and writers formed an unlikely creative community in the 1940s in the Theresienstadt (Terezín), Czechoslovakia concentration camp. Among the incarcerated were composers Pavel Haas, Gideon Klein, Hans Krasa, and Viktor Ullmann, who had trained under renowned musicians Leos Janacek, Alexander Zemlinsky, Arnold Schoenberg and Alois Haba; the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra Krasa had performed some of Krasa’s work prior to his imprisonment.

The Terezín Chamber Music Foundation, directed by Mark Ludwig, violist in its Hawthorne String Quartet, aims to preserve their music, as its interfaith concerts, children’s events, discussions and recordings further a humanitarian mission as well. “As the music and history of these artists are powerful tools in the ongoing struggle against racism and intolerance,” said Ludwig, “the Foundation is committed to ensuring their appreciation by people of all beliefs and experiences.”

Under a 1996 Fulbright Scholarship, Ludwig studied thousands and digitally archived hundreds of documents on the lives and work of these composers. A Boston Symphony Orchestra member, he teaches a Holocaust Studies course entitled Music in the Third Reich and the Holocaust as an Adjunct Professor at Boston College. He produced and directed 1994’s Silenced Voices: Music Banned by the Nazis exhibit at Brandeis, has lectured internationally on Holocaust music, consulted for many national orchestras and cultural groups, and has been featured on NPR, BBC World Radio, ABC World News and other media for his work with the Foundation.

His projects also include the Berkshire-based MusicWorks, the Richmond Performance Series Artists in Residency Program and Young People’s Concerts, which present school and community performances and mentoring programs. He founded and participated in MusicFOR/Sarajevo in 1997, which rebuilt its Music Academy.

The Foundation collaborated with educational organization Facing History & Ourselves in "Finding a Voice: Musicians in Terezin," which, NEA funded in 1999, explores Holocaust composers’ works and issues of intolerance, human rights and artistic freedom.

The Hawthorne String Quartet, whose members are all in the BSO, has released seven CDs and toured the U.S., South America, the Pacific Rim and Europe, including Prague in 1991 on the 50^th anniversary of the initial transports to the Concentration Camp. They returned to Prague Castle, the Prague Spanish Synagogue and in Pamatník Terezín in 2002, following Ludwig’s U.S. State Department commission to produce fundraising concerts for flood relief in the Czech Republic. The Quartet has collaborated with Christopher Hogwood, Ned Rorem, Andre Previn, Sir Simon Rattle, Yo-Yo Ma, Joshua Bell, Lynn Harrell, Marta Argerich and the Philobolus Dance Company.

HSQ concerts, according to Ludwig, include “narrative and slide presentations which provide background on the composers' lives and music, as well as offering a powerful glimpse into cultural activity and life in Theresienstad.” Inmates were able to smuggle contraband paper, art supplies and musical instruments into the camp, which was ironically used by the Nazis as propaganda in a fraudulent depiction of a cultural “paradise ghetto”.

The Foundation also collaborates with Project STEP in the PACE (Performance and Cultural Exchange) program, where local string students of color study the power of music in times of great suffering; guest lecturers have included survivor Edgar Krasa and Tibetan musician Penpa Tsering. Its Holocaust and Tolerance Curriculum, adopted by thousands of U.S. teachers, “helps educators use music to examine the issues of censorship, propaganda, resistance and survival during the tyranny of the Nazi Third Reich,” explained Ludwig. With a companion HSQ CD of Terezin music, it includes guidelines for incorporating music into Holocaust-themed courses. He also noted the Foundation’s school programs, which focus on “the importance of creativity in the lives of children and adults who perished in the Holocaust, with particular attention given to Theresienstadt. narratives, slides (including children's art from the camps) and performances by the Hawthorne String Quartet, and student poetry readings to create an environment of interaction.”

The Foundation’s public lectures include slides, recorded music and narrative on the Theresienstadt cultural community. It has sponsored archival research at Prague’s State Jewish Museum and the Czech Republic’s Terezín National Monument. Ludwig has also helped to record oral history from survivors “who either attended or performed in Theresienstadt concerts.”

On Feb. 1, The Terezin Chamber Music Group Concert performed at the First and Second Church, 66 Marlborough Street in Boston. For information on future shows, visit www.terezinmusic.org.

Of the 140,000 people transported to this "paradise ghetto,” 33,000 died from starvation, disease, torture, or the lack of medical care. Of the 87,000 people transported from Theresienstadt to other camps, only five percent survived, and out of 15,000 children who passed through Theresienstadt, only 93 survived.

The Terezín Chamber Music Foundation is helping to memorialize the contributions of those who did not beat the long odds.