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Not your average community or professional orchestraNews: An orchestra attempts to recreate the Nazi-run inmate orchestra at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
Here is an article about a very different sort of orchestra. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/arts/music/26birk.html?ref=music
From Glenda Williams
Posted on March 26, 2009 at 08:06 PM Tom, thanks for posting this. I was thinking of the film "Playing for Time" just the other day. Growing up I remember watching documentaries about the Holocaust and am appalled anytime someone claims that none of it actually happened. I can only imagine the horror of living through such a thing as the holocaust, and the musicians' guilt for the way they were able to survive. From Anne-Marie Proulx
Posted on March 26, 2009 at 11:30 PM Great post! I am always astonished to see how people can have great ideas. This is really a good one and it helps people to remember these events to hopefully never never reproduce them. It's really impressing that music could save the live of these women and I just feel sory for all the non musicians who would have deserved equally to live. But this is not the musicians fault and at least some survived and that in itself is extrordinairy. Nice initiative! Anne-Marie From Ron Gorthuis
Posted on March 27, 2009 at 04:34 AM quoted from the article: "Esther Béjarano, 84, a pianist who played accordion in the Birkenau orchestra, said it saved her life. But she called the current orchestra’s revival of the music “distasteful.” " I think the survirors say it mildly. My family was wiped out by the war. Only 3 survived, in total, to carry the name, and in rags and ill health. Yet, I do not support the stated purpose of this orchestra. While we must learn the errors in the past, we must also move on. The super powers have actually added immeasurably to the horrors of the past. Modern biological, chemical, nuclear weapons, technology, tactics, and politics were unimaginable 70 years ago. I do not need to look to the past for horrors, and certainly do not need to relive them. I need only to live today to see horrors I wish would and could never be. Really, does this have any place on v-com?.
From Tom Holzman
Posted on March 27, 2009 at 01:16 PM Ron - I am sorry about your family. You are undoubtedly not alone on this site in coming from a survivor family. Unfortunately, I would bet that lots of our families lost people in the Holocaust. However, I posted the link to this article because I thought it might be of interest to some of the folks on v.com, particularly those who are futher removed from the Holocaust than you and I are. I thought I described it clearly enough to permit those for whom it would be painful to ignore it. I certainly did not post it to upset v.commers who come from survivor families, and I apologize to anyone it upset. From Bob Annis
Posted on March 29, 2009 at 06:43 PM A thought-provoking article. I think the posting is not inappropriate, however uncomfortable the pondering of it might be. I can't say I'm at all uplifted by the article or any of its messages, nor am I insensible of the corruptions of modern states; however, human nature has not become any better or worse in the intervening years. It behooves all of us to be aware of the inherent good and evil in every aspect of life. The longer I look on this existence, the less black and white I see; merely shades of grey, trending toward the dark at the end of the tunnel. I'm grateful for the distraction of music. |
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