Words and Music

In this special 2020 edition of Words and Music marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, readers Henry Goodman and Maria Friedman read poetry and prose about life and death at the most notorious Nazi concentration camp. We'll hear from survivors like Primo Levi and Victor Frankl, who paint startling pictures of existence at Auschwitz; and from Anita Lasker-Wallfisch who played the cello in the Auschwitz Women's Orchestra. She once played Schumann's Träumerei for Dr Josef Mengele, who came to be known as the angel of death. Despite the hellish conditions, music was made in concentration camps. We'll hear about the fate of Auschwitz's Roma Orchestra and the unexpected presence of Tango at Auschwitz. You'll hear an early recording of the first song to be written in a concentration camp, the Peat Bog Soldiers, and songs by Ilse Weber, who wrote music for the children of the Theresienstadt camp and is said to have sung to her son and other children as she accompanied them into the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Poetry by survivors András Mezei and Annette Bialik Harchik reminds us that liberation was the end of a nightmarish journey but that living with the aftermath of the Holocaust was a burden which would be carried long after the camps were destroyed. Extract from a letter by Salmen Gradowski; The Survivor - András Mezei, translated by Thomas Ország; Land If This is a Man - Primo Levi; Man's Search For Meaning - Victor E Frankl, translated by Lisle Lasch; Earrings - Annette Bialik Harchik, translated by Rafael Bielobradek; Boots At a Concert of Lydia F - Krzystof Janusz Boczkowkski, translated by Adam A Zych and Andrzej Diniejko; The Librarian of Auschwitz - Antonio Iturbe, translated by Lilit Zekulin Thwaites; Fugitive Pieces - Anne Michaels; Violins of Hope - James A Grymes; First Thoughts: On Liberation Day From a Concentration Camp - Annette Bialik Harchik; The Survival Syndrome - Adam Alfred Zych, translated by June Friedman.