Music and the Holocaust
Using the medium of 360 video, By the Waters of Babylon takes viewers on an immersive journey into the world of composers silenced by the Holocaust and a contemporary string quartet’s mission to bring this music to a wider audience.
Violins of Hope Greater Pittsburgh
“Violins of Hope Greater Pittsburgh, is a landmark community project centered on the valuable lessons of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Over the course of two months, through educational and cultural programs, this unique project will use lessons of the Holocaust to demonstrate humanity’s amazing ability to rebound from even the darkest depravity. The centerpiece of this project will be an exhibit of stringed instruments that were played by Jewish prisoners in the concentration camps during the Holocaust. This exhibit will be free to the public and housed at the Posner Center on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University. There, trained docents will facilitate an understanding of the role that music played in the life of prisoners, whether as a mechanism for survival, mental escape, or even resistance. The mere existence of each instrument merits a story of hope and survival. Together, we are tuning out prejudice and building bridges that last.”
Yom HaShoah 2023 Commemoration Program
Our 2023 Yom HaShoah Commemoration marked the first in-person program for the first time since 2019. The program features a film by Chatham University students; music written by suppressed composers of the Holocaust and performed a quartet of Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and professional musicians; a candle lighting ceremony in honor of the six million Jews lost in the Holocaust, with additional candles lit in honor of the Liberators, Veterans, and the Righteous non-Jews who risked their lives to save the lives of their Jewish friends and neighbors; and a memorial for local survivors who have passed away.
Music and the Holocaust by ORT
“The information provided on this site is focused specifically on the Holocaust, particularly the ghettos and camps of Nazi-occupied Europe. The musical and historical material in this collection offers a particularly useful resource for Holocaust education. While it is focused on music, the website has the potential to be used quite broadly across the teaching curriculum, in classes on music and music history as well as in subjects such as history, social studies, language arts or citizenship. The section for educators provides resources that have been created specifically for secondary school teachers. The new student guide introduces the main themes of the website, asks questions and gives students a chance to discuss the issues online. There are also resources for those interested in including music in their Holocaust commemoration events.”
Music of the Holocaust by Yad Vashem
“The songs that were created during the Holocaust in ghettos, camps, and partisan groups tell the stories of individuals, groups and communities in the Holocaust period and were a source of unity and comfort, and later, of documentation and remembrance.
These compositions link the periods of Jewish cultural life before, during and after the war. They express the experience, ideology, and hope shared by their listeners, both individually and collectively. After the war, these compositions took on the further aspects of remembrance and commemoration.
The songs presented here are taken from the earliest recording conducted by Shmerke Kaczerginski who documented folklore and music for the Central Historical Commission in Munich in 1946. The collection of songs is preserved in the Yad Vashem Archives.”
