Alice's Piano
Page 24
Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the head of the RSHA, also had to be persuaded that the Red Cross’s request should be approved. In the second week of March 1945 he received Carl Jacob Burckhardt, the President of the International Red Cross, and agreed to let a member of the organization visit the camp in order to start immediate relief work while at the same time postponing the date of the visit until 6 April.
Before the visit, on Eichmann’s expressed orders, the walls of the prisoners’ quarters were freshly whitewashed, the facades of the barracks and houses were painted, the parks cleaned up and hygiene in the kitchens improved.6 A synagogue was set up as well and the Council of Elders was given a new office in a well-maintained house on the main square complete with carpets and telephones. The most cynical part of the refurbishment was the provision of a Jewish cemetery. The dead were no longer going to be burned but buried, according to Jewish law. Above all, cultural life was to be promoted at the highest level—after all, that had deceived the Red Cross the last time, in 1944.
* * *
A FEW days after Eichmann’s visit the camp commandant Karl Rahm ordered the prompt revival of Brundibár, ignoring the fact that since the last performance in September 1944 almost the entire cast—both children and adults—had been deported to Auschwitz and murdered. Of the children, just the seven-year-old Stephan Sommer and a few girls from the Theresienstadt choir remained. When this was pointed out to Rahm he was pragmatic. A new cast would have to be found, and immediately. Nothing impressed the Red Cross so much as children singing and dancing.
Hanuš Thein, a Prague opera director, who had also been blessed with a magnificent bass voice, was ordered to mount the production. As someone “related” to Aryans he, like Paul Herz, had only arrived in Theresienstadt at the beginning of 1945. “Thein, I need a children’s opera!” However peculiar Rahm’s order may sound in retrospect Hanuš Thein saw the potential. He could bring a lot of the new arrivals into the production and, after years of being banned from working, he could resume his profession once more.
Thein could not possibly put together a performance of Brundibár in the time available before the arrival of the Red Cross delegate. Humperdinck’s lavish Hansel and Gretel was also unthinkable. As an alternative Thein suggested the Czech children’s classic The Little Glow-Worm which the actress Vlasta Schoenová had already staged as a “dance poem” with the choreographer Kamilla Rosenbaum at the beginning of 1943. Schoenová had recited short extracts from the book and the readings had been punctuated by singing and dancing from thirty of the youngest children from Theresienstadt’s Czech community. The audience loved it so much that by October 1944 there had been twenty-eight performances.
Like Alice, Vlasta Schoenová was one of the few members of the Free Time Organization who had been spared from deportation to the east. She was reluctant, however, to put on The Little Glow-Worm again, convinced that it was just a strategy on the part of the SS to cover up what really went on in the ghetto. Hanuš Thein eventually convinced her, arguing that traditional songs in their mother tongue would appeal to the Czech audience’s patriotism and give them heart in what might prove to be the last weeks of the war.
* * *
ON 7 March 1945 an SS inspector came to the mica-splitting hut and went over to the table of the Free Time Organization. This was to be their last day in the workshop, he told them. From now on the women had concerts to give and needed to spend their days rehearsing.7
With the Dutch violin virtuoso Herman Leydensdorff, Alice prepared two new programs: one was to be an evening of Beethoven at which the singer Ada Schwarz-Klein would also perform and which would prove extremely popular.8 Edith Kraus put together a program of Bach, and also organized two evenings of concerts for two pianos with Beatrice Pimentel who had just arrived in the camp.
Paul Herz volunteered for the chamber orchestra. Now, instead of going to the construction site, he went to the Sokolovna, the former gymnasium, which since the “beautification drive” of July 1944 had been turned into a community center complete with stage, prayer room and the Free Time Organization’s library. Like Paul, a few members of the orchestra had brought their instruments into the camp; others could help themselves from the confiscated instruments. A whole collection of string instruments from Karel Ančerl’s now legendary orchestra were lying in an attic.
Robert Brock, an experienced musician who had often conducted in Russia and in Czechoslovakia, was appointed conductor. In addition to his daily rehearsals he had to compose an overture for The Little Glow-Worm and—more importantly—had to keep the commanding SS officers involved. Their attitude to the musicians was often unpredictable—as indeed it was to everybody.
While Alice felt relaxed in her musical world, Paul was troubled and asked himself what exactly lay behind the privileges they were granted by the SS. He wanted to know why his sister, for example, should be given special treatment: “They want to save your skin, Alice, to show the world how nice they have been to the Jews in the camp.” Nonetheless, the two of them decided to take advantage of the freedom Rahm had given them and they began rehearsing a program of Beethoven sonatas. Paul had smuggled the scores into the camp, and there was one sonata he had never played with Alice.
Stephan attended the rehearsals in the tiny room in the Magdeburg Barracks. “I have heard that you are the best page-turner here,” Paul said to his nephew. “Can we employ you?” Stephan was thrilled and from then on never missed “Pavel and Maminka’s” rehearsals. Even when he did not have to turn the pages he sat in a corner and watched. He remembered the next few weeks particularly well. At nine he began the day with an hour’s piano lesson, after which he could—as much as was possible in a concentration camp—opt to do whatever he liked. He could listen to his mother rehearsing or go to his uncle’s orchestra rehearsals. He liked these so much that he decided he wanted to become a conductor.
One day, as they rehearsed, Paul turned to Alice and asked, “Do you still know the D major Adagio from the sixth Beethoven Sonata?”
It was a foolish question—Alice knew that the Adagio was Paul’s favorite piece of music, which, when they were children of ten and eleven, they had played to their mother. Sofie Herz requested the piece almost as often as she did the splendidly melodic Dvořák Sonatina, which she liked best of all. “We’re going to do it like the old days,” said Paul, “first the Adagio and then the Sonatina.” They had known both pieces by heart for three decades.
Alice, seated at the piano, waited for her cue. She loved these moments. Paul concentrated deeply before beginning each piece, until a slight but unmistakable shudder showed that he was ready. Raising his left shoulder, he would give a forceful nod and begin to play. Alice studied Paul closely, so that she could come in at the precise moment. And as she did so, unhappy thoughts flooded through her. Why was she the only one of the three sisters who felt close to Paul? Was it because of their common love of music? It pained Alice that Marianne and Irma thought their brother was a good-for-nothing, idle gambler; they had even written him off as a drunken adventurer and shunned his company. Both sisters had grounds for their opinion, but what criteria were they applying? Was it really so bad that Paul had never held down a proper job? He had never done anyone any harm. He was a bohemian, certainly, but he was also open and happy, ready to help others and took life as it came. Was that not enough? Alice had always wanted Paul to make more out of his above-average musical talent, but no one could seriously contend that he would be a better person as an orchestral performer or a violin virtuoso. Paul was amiable and warm-hearted, he was at peace with himself and in love with life; and above all he was her brother.
Paul used to visit Alice and Stephan almost daily, frequently telling Stephan his bedtime story. “Do you actually know the story of the little glow-worm?” Stephan asked his uncle one day. He had not seen the piece performed, as it had been written for “little ones.” Stephan had been six when he arrived in Theresienstadt and was already considered to be a “big boy
.”
“Of course,” Paul said. “When I was a child, your grandmother often used to read it to your maminka and me. In those days every child in Czechoslovakia knew the story. It had been written by a Czech minister. He was called Jan Karafiát, and if my memory serves me well he called his book a ‘story for big and small children.’ Shall I tell you the story?” Stephan smiled. “Then lie down and close your eyes, you big child…”
Paul waited for Stephan to find a comfortable spot on the mattress and then he began speaking softly: “Once upon a time there was a mummy glow-worm and her glow-worm son. They lived in a glow-worm house in a wonderfully beautiful flower. They inhabited a lovely meadow full of blooms. One day the child was big enough to learn to fly, and from then on he practiced daily, and every day he went a little further. Then he had a terrible accident. There were some children playing in the meadow and they trod on the baby glow-worm…”
“Was he dead?” Stephan quickly opened his eyes and grabbed his mother’s hand.
“No, fortunately not, but he was badly injured; the little glow-worm’s mother nursed her son and nourished him with good food until he grew up to be a strong young man, found himself a nice lady glow-worm and finally the glow-worms had a wedding to celebrate.”
“What then?”
“They lived happily ever…”
“Oh, really.”
Now Paul had to smile. “On the stage the piece is particularly beautiful because the children sing all the best-known popular songs.”
Stephan had picked up a little of the arguments about the production and wanted to know what they were about.
“Why does your conductor have to write an overture to it?”
“It needs to be a particularly festive production … and therefore it needs a festive overture. And because there isn’t one yet, Robert Brock has to invent one. We have promised him that we will write out his score as soon as he has finished composing it. Every member of the orchestra has to have a score and the sooner they are written the sooner the rehearsals can begin. From tomorrow I should have my part and, if you come along too and help me, we will get it done quicker.”
Stephan’s eyes lit up. “Do you know that everyone who helps gets two tickets to the premiere?” Paul told him. “The performance is on 20 March in the Sokolovna; that is in two weeks. Now, sleep well.”
For the next three days Paul came to fetch Stephan every morning and take him round to the Magdeburg Barracks. They sat next to one another for hours on end and while Paul copied out the score with a well-trained hand, Stephan painted illustrations to the story with great concentration. On the evening of the third day he was rewarded with two tickets. He proudly brought the tickets home to his mother and on 20 March the two of them were present at an unusual premiere. Brock had chosen the loveliest Czech folk songs and made a sort of orchestral medley out of them.
“It was a polished production. Every detail had been thought out. The children were not required to do any acting, just to be themselves,” wrote Vlasta Schoenová about the production later.
The choir of glow-worms for the marriage was performed by Slovak children who sang Slovak songs and danced Slovak dances with naturalness and great ability. As many as 700 prisoners filled the auditorium while the SS was upstairs in the gallery; but after the first few bars the audience had forgotten they were there. Songs like “Your Green Grove” and “Spring is Coming” rang out and there was not a dry eye in the house and the words “And it was spring and everything was out in bloom…” brought the house down.9
The audience had not failed to notice that Robert Brock had quoted the Czech national anthem in the overture, and the performance, which was supposed to create a smoke screen, was instead a demonstration of hope in the coming liberation. At the second performance, the demand was so great that many who were not among the 700 lucky enough to receive tickets tried to climb in through the windows. In the next four weeks, until 20 April, The Little Glow-Worm was performed thirteen times. Every time, the theater was sold out and every time the audience took the moving Czech melodies to be a manifesto: we will survive, our suffering will soon be over.
* * *
ON 6 April 1945, as planned, a member of the International Red Cross was given a tour of Theresienstadt. Paul Dunant, a Swiss, was accompanied by Adolf Eichmann and Rudolf Weinmann. Instead of the ailing camp commandant Karl Rahm, it was his assistant Hans Günther who received the delegate.10
Alice was concentrating on her work at the piano—practice by day, concerts in the evening—a mental as much as a physical challenge. She did not learn of the visit until after it had happened. Paul, on the other hand, was part of the SS masquerade: the chamber orchestra, with him as one of the violinists, had to play the Dvořák Serenade for Dunant and an audience of SS officers.
Dunant kept his distance during his short visit—both from the SS and the Jewish prisoners—and even today it is not entirely clear why. Was he taken in by the false beauty of Theresienstadt so that he did not believe the prisoners to be in any immediate danger? Was he anxious to prevent any further problems for the inmates because he knew that he would be coming back with other people? With the collapse of the National Socialist rule of terror just around the corner, the concert and theatrical performances must have looked like macabre nonsense. Nevertheless, he left the same day, leaving the prisoners in a state of great uncertainty.
Four days later, on 10 April 1945, Alice and Paul gave their first joint performance in Theresienstadt. Because they had many other commitments, and they lacked time to rehearse, Paul had suggested delaying the performance of the Beethoven Sonata and giving a smaller concert instead, a sort of personal gift to their many friends and relations in the camp.
Alice wanted to thank Arnošt Weiss and therefore opened the concert with the Smetana Dances, which Weiss had learned and grown to love when they all played together at the Sommers’ house before their deportation. Now he sat in the front row of the Sokolovna and fought back his tears. The main work—a tribute to their vanished mother—was the Dvořák Sonatina, but because Alice had played them in her despair after her mother’s deportation, and because Chopin simply could not be omitted from a concert of thanks and reminiscence, she chose the first twelve Études. These—and indeed all the music they played—gave the audience who came that night hope.
As liberation approached, the more expansive the daily cultural menu became. In the last days of the war, between 7 and 13 April 1945, the weekly program of the Free Time Organization was crammed full of cabarets, concerts, evenings of Lieder and myriad other musical events.
On Saturday 7 April alone there was a choice of four concerts. At seven there was a performance of The Little Glow-Worm in the Stage Room of the Sokolovna. A quarter of an hour later Alice and Professor Herman Leydensdorff ’s Beethoven concert began in the Terrace Room. A few blocks away, at 14 Parkstrasse, Marion Podelier was singing Schubert, Brahms and Dvořák lieder to Edith Kraus’s accompaniment; while at 2 Hauptstrasse Frank Wedekind’s satire Der Kammersänger (The Tenor) was performed at the same time.
The next day there was a matinee of The Little Glow-Worm, while in the evening there was a choice of a jazz quintet and a variety show by the two cabaret artists Anni Frey and Gisa Wurzel, whose witty banter had helped their fellow women to withstand the long months of splitting mica. At the same time Hedda Grab-Kernmayer and Marion Podelier were giving a concert of opera arias. At 2 Hauptstrasse Edith Kraus was playing Bach. And so it went on. Monday’s high point was scenes from Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann and a recital of Schubert’s Winterreise.
These performances were a refuge for the prisoners, a wonderful distraction. In the long term they could not alter the mood, which still wavered between fear and hope. Theresienstadt was constantly shaken by new rumors: Was the SS planning fresh deportations? Or were they to be murdered here and now? Would the liberators force the Germans to capitulate in time and then release the prisoners?
* * *
Alice held on to Stephan tightly. Together they watched the people (those who still could) descend on a tub of soup that had been set up in the square. It was clear that these creatures had had nothing to eat or drink for days.
Hitherto, Alice had always tried to protect Stephan from seeing anything that might unsettle him. Now they were standing face to face with the truth of what had happened to those people who had been deported to the east, which had been concealed from them for so long. The prisoners came from Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Every day more and more arrived. In Theresienstadt they called the newcomers “pajamas” because of their striped suits. They did not just come in cattle trucks, they also came on lorries or on foot; there were hundreds and thousands of them; 5,000 by the end and with them they brought disease into the camp.
Stephan was now nearly eight and big enough to understand that the people were coming from precisely the same place that his father had been sent to. He wanted to help.
“The people need water,” he told his mother, “and sugar.” He had picked this up from a doctor, that feeding a starved body too quickly causes more damage than it cures; sugar brought immediate solace. He wanted his Uncle Paul to get hold of as much sugar as he could.
Every day Stephan urged his mother to accompany him to the new prisoners and to help them. There was no question about it: he was waiting for the return of his father. “My daddy is somewhere in the world and if there is no one there to bring him some water and a spoonful of sugar then perhaps he won’t be able to come back to us.”