28 October 2022 - 0 Comments

A Kristallnacht Commemorative Concert recounting the many roles music played, from pre- war Europe through the horrors of war – resistance, survival, resilience, and a means to battle racism and fascism.

The Holocaust Centre of New Zealand, in partnership with New Zealand School of Music—Te Kōkī, Victoria University of Wellington, presents the Kristallnacht Commemorative Concert 2022.

This year’s Kristallnacht concert is a tribute to the Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz. The stories of the lives of Alma Rosé, violinist and conductor, and other inspirational women’s lives will be told through the evening’s music programme.

"The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz" was formed by order of the SS in 1943, during the Holocaust, in the Auschwitz - Birkenau extermination camp in German occupied Poland. Active from April 1943 until October 1944, the orchestra consisted of mostly young female Jewish and Slavic prisoners. The orchestra's primary function was to play at the main gate each morning and evening as the prisoners left for and returned from their forced labour; the orchestra also gave weekend concerts for the prisoners and the SS and entertained at SS functions.

Concert musicians are: Amalia Hall, Violin, Yury Gezentsvey, Violin (Wellington concert), Martin Riseley, Violin (Auckland concert), Inbal Megiddo, Cello, Kristallnacht Ensemble

Narration: Inbal Megiddo, Sharn Maree Cassady; MC, Donald Maurice

This concert commemorates Kristallnacht (“Crystal Night”), “The Night of Broken Glass”, the November pogrom, 9 -10 November 1938, when carefully orchestrated anti-Jewish violence was carried out across Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland. Over the next 48 hours rioters - often neighbours, not strangers – ransacked and damaged more than 7,500 Jewish businesses and burned over 200 synagogues. Police stood by and did nothing to stop the destruction. Firemen were present, not to protect the synagogues or Jewish buildings but to ensure that the flames did not spread to adjacent “Aryan” property. Jewish cemeteries were desecrated. The pogrom was given the name Kristallnacht, referring ironically to the litter of broken glass left in the streets. It marked the beginning of the systematic eradication of a people and it was the prelude to the Holocaust that was to follow.

Wellington - Thursday, 10 November, Public Trust Hall, Lambton Quay, 6.30pm

Auckland - Monday, 14 November, King’s School, 258 Remuera Road, Remuera, 6.30pm

Comments

Return to News Archive