Music as a Lifeline
One of the most remarkable acts of resistance through music occurred in the Warsaw Ghetto. Just nine days after the ghetto was sealed in November 1940, the Jewish Symphonic Orchestra, led by composer and cellist Marian Neuteich, held its first concert. Despite restrictions, the orchestra played works by Beethoven—strictly forbidden by the Germans, who sought to limit Jewish performances to so-called ‘Jewish music’ like Mendelssohn and Mahler. Yet Beethoven's notes, echoing through the ghetto, became a quiet but profound rebellion. Ludwik Hirszfeld, a prominent immunologist, noted how Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, played against Nazi orders, felt like defying a world that wanted to extinguish joy: ‘To forbid Beethoven was like forbidding sunlight.’
In Łódź, under different conditions, Teodor Ryder led the ghetto orchestra, where Bach and Beethoven were permitted, but Jewish composers like Mahler and Mendelssohn were banned. Despite these limitations, Jewish musicians found ways to play forbidden music, making each performance a subtle act of rebellion.
Wiera Gran, a renowned singer, often performed in Warsaw's Café Sztuka. She described it as a ‘temple of forgetfulness,’ a space where music could momentarily lift the heavy fog of despair. Her voice, along with that of the ‘Nightingale of the Ghetto,’ Marysia Ajzensztadt, brought solace to those suffering in unimaginable conditions. Ajzensztadt’s ethereal voice, blending Jewish, Polish, and Hebrew traditions, was tragically exploited by the Nazis, who forced her to perform in propaganda films that distorted the realities of ghetto life. Yet, even in such manipulation, her songs became symbols of resistance and survival.
Theatres and Performance
The ghetto’s cultural life wasn’t limited to music. In case of Warsaw ghetto, for instance, five theatres operated within its walls, offering performances in both Yiddish and Polish. Among them were Teatr Femina and Melody Palace, which catered to audiences with light, comedic performances. Over the 20 months of its existence, ghetto theatres put on 68 premieres, offering not only entertainment but also a form of resistance. Attending these performances was a statement—a refusal to let Nazi persecution strip away their humanity. Despite criticisms from some, like the Bund party, which saw these performances as frivolous amidst death, theatres were filled. Plays and cabarets became spaces where ghetto residents could laugh, cry, and reclaim a sense of normalcy.
The importance of preserving normal cultural habits, such as attending a concert or a play, was profound. In their work on the Warsaw Ghetto, historians Barbara Engelking and Jacek Leociak described these actions as subtle defiance against the Nazi regime’s dehumanizing worldview.
Diana Blumenfeld, a brilliant actress and singer, captivated audiences with her performances, blending entertainment with the stark realities of life under Nazi rule. Even when the world outside crumbled, theatre provided a fleeting escape, a chance to express collective pain, and a reminder that even in the darkest moments, art could sustain life.
Visual Arts and Writers
Visual artists in the ghettos were chroniclers of their time, documenting the brutal realities through their art. Gela Seksztajn, a talented painter and art teacher, produced over 300 works that captured life in the Warsaw Ghetto. Her portraits, particularly of Jewish children, are haunting testaments to the lost lives. These works, hidden in the Ringelblum Archive, were meant to survive even when she could not. In her final testament, she poignantly wrote: ‘I must die, but I have done my duty.’ Her art, alongside the poetry of her husband Izrael Lichtensztejn, now serves as a permanent witness to the resilience of the Jewish spirit.
Beniamin Rozenfeld also risked his life to document the horrors of ghetto life through his drawings, preserving the stories of starvation, deportation, and daily humiliation. Like Seksztajn, his works were hidden, ensuring that the atrocities would be remembered even after the war.
In the world of literature, approximately 87 writers, many of them Yiddish authors, lived in the ghetto. Names like Icchak Kacenelson, who wrote the heart-wrenching ‘Song of the Murdered Jewish People,’ and Władysław Szlengel, known for his satirical poems about life in the ghetto, stand out. Few of their works survived, but some were preserved in the Ringelblum Archive or smuggled to the Aryan side.
The Last Brushstrokes: Behrmann’s Copyists in Białystok
In the Białystok Ghetto, Adolf Behrmann led a group of Jewish painters in what became known as the ‘copyist command,’ tasked by the Nazis with reproducing famous works of art. Behrmann and his team, which included artists like Natalia Landau and Izaak Celnikier, used their position not only to survive but to create original works. When the Nazis came to liquidate the ghetto, Behrmann chose to stay at his easel, where he was shot while painting—a final act of defiance, refusing to give up his craft even in the face of death.
Cultural Legacy: Emanuel Ringelblum and the Oneg Shabbat Archive
The work of documenting Jewish life in the ghettos was a monumental act of preservation. Historian Emanuel Ringelblum, recognizing the importance of chronicling this tragic chapter, led the Oneg Shabbat Archive in the Warsaw Ghetto. This secret effort gathered documents, testimonies, and works of art, all hidden in metal boxes and milk cans. After the war, these archives were unearthed, providing one of the most important collections of Holocaust documentation. Ringelblum’s foresight ensured that the art, culture, and resistance of the ghettos would never be forgotten.
The Struggle to Preserve Culture
The artists of the ghetto knew that their work held a deeper significance beyond survival. By creating art, they were actively preserving Jewish culture, traditions, and heritage in the face of systematic annihilation. Figures like Janusz Korczak used storytelling and theatre to shield children from the harsh realities of ghetto life. Art became a shield, a way to maintain a sense of normalcy and hope in a world where both were rapidly vanishing.
The collective creation of culture in the ghettos also transcended the individual. Institutions like the ‘House of Culture’ in the Vilnius Ghetto provided a space where people could attend concerts, theatre performances, and lectures, continuing the intellectual and artistic traditions of the Jewish community. This cultural vibrancy, even in such conditions, demonstrated the indomitable will to live and express.
Survival of the Few
Only a handful of prominent figures, such as Władysław Szpilman, the renowned pianist, Wiera Gran, a famous singer, and Rachela Auerbach, a chronicler of ghetto life, managed to survive the Holocaust. The majority of the artists met their tragic end during the mass deportations between July and September 1942 or during the ghetto's final liquidation following the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943.
The uprising, a courageous but doomed act of defiance, concluded on May 16, 1943, when the Germans demolished the Great Synagogue on Tłomackie Street, marking the symbolic end of the Warsaw Ghetto.
Art as Resistance: A Lasting Symbol
The legacy of ghetto art extends beyond its time. It reminds us of the power of human creativity in the darkest of circumstances. Through their work, artists ensured that future generations would remember the struggles, suffering, and resistance of those trapped in the ghettos. They made sure that even in death, their voices would not be silenced.
Many of the artworks and performances created in the ghettos were lost in the horrors of war, but those that survived offer a window into the resilience of the human spirit. They remind us that art is not just a luxury of peaceful times—it is an essential part of the human condition, a means of asserting one's identity and humanity, even in the most dire circumstances.
Mieczysław Weinberg, Symphony No. 21 ‘Kaddish’ (1989-91)
This profound work, composed by a Polish composer of Jewish descent, serves as a poignant tribute to the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto. Through its haunting melodies, including echoes of klezmer music and Chopin, the symphony captures the sorrow, resistance, and enduring memory of those who perished. In this month's edition, dedicated to memory places and education through experience, Weinberg's ‘Kaddish’ stands as a powerful reminder of the atrocities of the Holocaust and the importance of preserving history through art.
Read and listen here.
References:
Gadowska, I., Warunki działalności artystycznej plastyków w getcie łódzkim 1940-1944 w świetle źródeł: dokumentacji administracyjnej, wspomnień i relacji świadków, 2020
Artyści w getcie (Culture.pl)
Szpilman, Szlengel, Gran... Poznaj artystów getta (Culture.pl)
Kultura w getcie warszawskim (Muzeum Getta Warszawskiego