The Last Musician of Auschwitz review: how music can be a source of hope and atrocity

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class="c-breadcrumbs__link"><span itemprop="name">Culture</span> <meta itemprop="position" content="1"></a> <i class="c-icon icon-chevron-right"></i> </li><li itemprop="itemListElement" itemscope="" itemtype="https://schema.org/ListItem" class="c-breadcrumbs__item"> <a itemprop="item" href="https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/music" class="c-breadcrumbs__link"><span itemprop="name">Music</span> <meta itemprop="position" content="1"></a> <i class="c-icon icon-chevron-right"></i> </li></ol> <div class="c-date"><span class="meta-item c-date__published">22 January 2025</span></div> </div> <div class="c-entry-header"> <h1 class="c-article-header__title">The sound of Auschwitz</h1> <p class="c-article-excerpt">A new documentary marking the 80th Holocaust Memorial Day tells the extraordinary story of the camp’s 15 orchestras.</p> </div> <p class="c-article-header__author">By <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/author/hannahbarnes" class="">Hannah Barnes</a> </p> </div> <div class="c-article-header__googleAd GAS_desctop GOOGLE_ADS_SLOT" data-sizes="300,250" style="display:none;"></div> </header> <section id="figarocontent" class="c-article-content c-entry-content entry clearfix "> <div class="c-article-content__container"> <div class="c-featured-image"> <figure class="c-featured-image__container"> <img width="1038" height="778" src="https://dl6pgk4f88hky.cloudfront.net/2025/01/22/506273-1038x778.jpg" class="attachment-4x3-large-crop size-4x3-large-crop wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" fetchpriority="high" srcset="https://dl6pgk4f88hky.cloudfront.net/2025/01/22/506273-1038x778.jpg 1038w, https://dl6pgk4f88hky.cloudfront.net/2025/01/22/506273-314x235.jpg 314w, https://dl6pgk4f88hky.cloudfront.net/2025/01/22/506273-464x348.jpg 464w, https://dl6pgk4f88hky.cloudfront.net/2025/01/22/506273-735x551.jpg 735w" sizes="(max-width: 1407px) 1407px, (max-width: 335px) 335px, (max-width: 705px) 705px, (max-width: 335px) 335px, (max-width: 689px) 689px, (max-width: 336px) 336px, (max-width: 210px) 210px, (max-width: 101px) 101px, (max-width: 1024px) 1024px, (max-width: 101px) 101px, (max-width: 397px) 397px, (max-width: 464px) 464px, (max-width: 797px) 797px, (max-width: 960px) 960px, (max-width: 314px) 314px, (max-width: 464px) 464px, (max-width: 735px) 735px, (max-width: 1038px) 1038px" /> <figcaption class="c-featured-image__description">Photo by BBC/Two Rivers Media/Toby Trackman/Duane McClunie</figcaption> </figure> </div> <div class="c-share"> <ul class="c-share__list"> <li> <a href="mailto:type%20email%20address%20here?subject=I%20wanted%20to%20share%20this%20post%20with%20you%20from%20New%20Statesman&body=The%20sound%20of%20Auschwitz%20-%20https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/music/2025/01/the-last-musician-of-auschwitz-review-music-source-of-hope-soundtrack-to-atrocity" target="_blank" class="c-share__link icon-email" title="Share in an email"> </a> </li> <li> <a class="c-share__link icon-linkedin" href="http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/music/2025/01/the-last-musician-of-auschwitz-review-music-source-of-hope-soundtrack-to-atrocity" target="_blank" title="Share on LinkedIN"> </a> </li> <li> <a class="c-share__link icon-twitter" href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/music/2025/01/the-last-musician-of-auschwitz-review-music-source-of-hope-soundtrack-to-atrocity" target="_blank" title="Share on Twitter"> </a> </li> <li> <a class="c-share__link icon-facebook" href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/music/2025/01/the-last-musician-of-auschwitz-review-music-source-of-hope-soundtrack-to-atrocity" target="_blank" title="Share on facebook"> </a> </li> </ul> </div> <p class="has-drop-cap">Even in hell, there was music. As the Nazis rounded up Jews, stripped them of their dignity, forced them to undertake manual labour, starved and killed them, they also insisted there be a soundtrack to these crimes. Among the inmates at concentration camps were some of Europe’s most talented musicians. At <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/tag/holocaust" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Auschwitz</a>, where more than one million Jews were murdered, 15 orchestras operated. They were forced to play marches for an hour each morning and evening, as prisoners headed to and from work.</p> <p>“Music was played to the most terrible things,” Anita Lasker-Wallfisch told the BBC in 1945, having survived the death camp. Upon arriving she – like everyone – was forced to remove all her clothing. Her possessions were taken from her. Her head was shaved, and a number tattooed on her arm. The purpose was to deny Jews their humanity; make them completely indistinguishable from one another. What was she doing before being brought to the camp, Lasker-Wallfisch was asked? She replied that she was a cellist. It was the strangest thing, she recalls, 80 years on: standing stark naked and having a conversation about the cello. Yet that chance conversation saved her life.</p> <p>Lasker-Wallfisch’s story is one of several that feature in <em>The Last Musician of Auschwitz</em>, an extraordinary documentary to be broadcast on BBC Two for the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau (and Holocaust Memorial Day) on 27 January. Aged 99, Lasker-Wallfisch is the only surviving member of the Women’s Orchestra at Auschwitz. For some prisoners, the orchestral accompaniment to the beginning and end of their day gave a few glorious moments of escapism – a chance to close their eyes and try to forget where they were. Others viewed it as pure sadism. “We didn’t need entertainment,” one male survivor said angrily, “we needed food.” Some would not make it through the day alive to hear the evening “performance”.</p><div class="stream-item ad stream-item-in-post stream-item-inline-post ad "> <div class="GOOGLE_ADS_SLOT GAS_mobile GAS_tablet" data-sizes="300,250" style="display:nonemargin-bottom:24px"> </div> </div> <p>The orchestras were also made to play at the entrance to the camp as <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/tag/jewish" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jews</a> arrived in their thousands, stepping off cramped trains, and separated into lines of who would live (at least for the moment) and who would die. When Lasker-Wallfisch arrived, aged 19, she thought she was hallucinating. Could she really hear Mozart’s <em>Eine kleine Nachtmusik</em>? Other former prisoners recall their incredulity: how dare they? The Nazis were mocking them – welcoming them to their death.</p> <p>SS commanders could demand music at any time, too. It was stressful, having to choose which Jews they would kill or allow to live each day, Lasker-Wallfisch observes with dark wit. Spare a thought for Josef Mengele who, while generally enjoying his work, would sometimes need a break from amputating the healthy limbs of children, or transfusing the blood of one twin into another. One evening he walked into Lasker-Wallfisch’s barracks demanding a performance of “Träumerei” (“Dreams”) from Robert Schumann’s <em>Kinderszenen </em>(“Scenes from Childhood”). What did she feel? “I didn’t <em>feel</em> anything,” she says. “I played as fast as I could, and I said, ‘Get out.’” The irony is that the <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/tag/nazis" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nazis</a> viewed themselves as cultured. Cultured – yet guilty of some of worst atrocities ever known to humankind. It is impossible to make sense of. Perhaps we should not try.</p> <p>Other Auschwitz inmates drew strength from music. Singing together quietly, or humming, was a way of showing solidarity and maintaining their own languages, often Yiddish. It was also an act of defiance. Those who played in the orchestra, such as the Polish composer Szymon Laks, went further, writing concertos based on their heritage. In his memoir, <em>Music of Another World</em>, Laks recalls rehearsing the second movement of his <em>Third String Quartet</em>, which was based on Polish folk tunes. An SS guard burst in, demanding to know what he was playing. Thinking fast, Laks gave the name of a largely unknown Austrian composer. “A beautiful quartet,” the guard replied. “One could tell it was German right away.”</p> <p>Among the darkness in <em>The Last Musician of Auschwitz</em> there are moments of light, but there is no escaping the horror of the mass murder that took place. The Jews in the 15 orchestras of Auschwitz played while their friends and families were gassed to death and then incinerated. Barbarity was the backdrop to their beautiful music.</p><div class="july22-newsletter"> <section class="new-newsletter-block"> <div class="newsletter-block-logo"> <a href="javascript(void);"><img decoding="async" src="https://dl6pgk4f88hky.cloudfront.net/2021/09/TNS_master_logo.svg" class="img"></a> </div> <div style="margin-bottom: 2.3rem;font-family: Canela, Georgia, serif;font-size: var(--subtitle-4-fs);font-weight: 300;line-height: var(--subtitle-4-lh);padding-top: 10px;">Subscribe to The New Statesman today for only £1 per week </div> <div class="newsletter-block-btn"><a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/subscribe-5-weeks-for-5" class="c-btn c-btn--dark">Subscribe</a></div> </section> </div> <p>I am haunted by the story of Ilse Weber – the Czech Jewish songwriter – and how she turned to music in her worst moments. As pro-Nazi sentiment rose in late-1930s Czechoslovakia, Weber sent away her eldest son, Hanuš, to escape persecution; he became one of 669 children saved by the <em>Kindertransport</em>. In late 1944 the children at the Theresienstadt ghetto – including Weber’s youngest son, Tommy – were summoned to Auschwitz. Weber refused to let them die alone, so she chose to accompany them. At Theresienstadt, she had worked in the children’s hospital. While forbidden to provide medicine, Weber would sing lullabies to provide comfort instead. Later, at the entrance to the Auschwitz gas chamber, a guard advised Weber to gather the children, sit together on the floor and sing. It would reduce their fear, he said – and singing would help them inhale the gas faster, so they would die more quickly. I cannot get the image out of my mind.</p> <p>Music is an extraordinary thing; that it can be used for evil, as well as good, is rarely considered. “In the dark times, will there also be singing?” the German playwright Bertolt Brecht wrote. “Yes, there will be singing,” came the reply. “About the dark times.”</p> <p><em><strong>[See also: <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/book-of-the-day/2025/01/caroline-darian-review-rewriting-story-gisele-pelicot" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rewriting the story of Gisèle Pelicot</a>]</strong></em></p> <hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"> <p></p> <h6 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-listen-to-the-new-statesman-podcast">Listen to the <em>New Statesman</em> podcast</h6> <p></p> <iframe src="https://embed.acast.com/6b2fc9ba-b9b7-4b7a-b980-e0024facd926?theme=light&cover=false&feed=true" frameborder="0" width="100%" height="280px"></iframe> <p></p> <div class="wp-block-buttons has-custom-font-size is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-1 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex" style="font-size:3px"> <div class="wp-block-button"><a class="wp-block-button__link has-background wp-element-button" href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-new-statesman-podcast/id630596898" style="background-color:#ffffff00" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img decoding="async" class="wp-image-442365" style="width: 150px;" src="https://www.newstatesman.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/28/applepodcasts-badge.svg" alt=""></a></div> <div class="wp-block-button"><a class="wp-block-button__link has-background wp-element-button" style="background-color:#ffffff00"><img decoding="async" class="wp-image-442367" style="width: 150px;" src="https://www.newstatesman.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/28/spotify-badge.svg" alt=""></a></div> <div class="wp-block-button"><a class="wp-block-button__link has-background wp-element-button" href="https://www.youtube.com/@NewStatesman" style="background-color:#ffffff00" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img decoding="async" class="wp-image-442426" style="width: 150px;" src="https://www.newstatesman.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/28/youtube-badge.svg" alt=""></a></div> </div> <p></p> <p></p> </p><div class="c-sponsored-article"> <h6 class="c-sponsored-article__title">Content from our partners</h6> <div class="c-sponsored-article__single"> <a aria-label="Securonomics? 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The Last Musician of Auschwitz review: how music can be a source of hope and atrocity - New Statesman