- OK.
- Yeah.
- Karl said that he had made several appointments.
- And then he canceled them.
- And so he, Karl's, eventually himself went to New York,
- knocked on the door, put his foot in the door, and said,
- I'm coming in, sat him down, and interviewed him for three hours
- because it turned out, he didn't really want to talk about it.
- OK.
- Well, all right.
- So I'm talking with Paul Kling in Victoria today, October 12,
- 1989, about before, and during, and after Terezín,
- experience of music in Terezín.
- And maybe we can start with a little bit about your--
- you're not from Brno.
- But you did some studying there.
- Yes, I did.
- Actually, I'm from Opava, which was a small town,
- but interesting in the way that it was a city of, I don't know,
- 20,000-25,000 people, a military garrison which had a symphony
- orchestra.
- And the city had an opera house and a legitimate theater.
- And it was a springboard of--
- oh, maybe I got too close with that.
- Of many musicians now, I don't know whether he started there,
- but Karel Berman I think, first engagement was in Opava.
- The Canadian conductor Niki Goldschmidt started there.
- Tibor Kozma, the assistant at the Metropolitan and later
- Indiana University started there.
- Anyhow, I grew up there.
- Of course, studying there, I started when I
- was four and a half and so on.
- Did you come from a musical family?
- Oh, yeah, well, that may be of importance.
- My father came from a family of physicians, small country
- doctors.
- But he was evidently musical.
- He went to Prague and studied at the Conservatory, violin
- with Dvorak.
- And no, no, I'm sorry--
- violin with Sevcik and composition with Dvorak,
- of course.
- As you can see, I'm half-senile.
- And well, he finished his studies.
- And then when he was through, and his father said,
- well, you have got it out of your system.
- Now, Fredenko, you will be a nice boy.
- And you will do what all the Klings did since 1620
- or whenever.
- And you will be a doctor again.
- So he was a doctor, but always had chamber music in his house.
- Evidently, I heard something there.
- Maybe I liked it.
- So I wanted to play the violin when I was four and a half.
- And needless to say, he wholeheartedly supported it.
- So a small place, as I said.
- There were some teachers around--
- evidently, nobody with great experience.
- And I think the teachers themselves
- felt that I should be going somewhere else to study
- and recommended that I studied several places.
- Vienna was not the closest, but I
- guess it was the most high-profile place.
- So I studied mostly in Vienna, a little bit
- also in Brno, but mostly in Vienna.
- And it may sound strange to you, Adolf Bach
- was my first teacher there.
- Adolf Bach, according to books-- and I
- have no way of knowing whether this is correct,
- but it must be the same person because there are not
- so many Adolf Bach violinists-- he was one
- of the teachers of Carl Flesch, Carl Flesch being what,
- about 100 years older?
- No, I mean, we can kindly just say that well, it
- is completely different.
- Flesch died a few years after I was born, I think,
- in the late '30s or something.
- So and he was-- at first, he was going
- to George Steiner, a Viennese violinist, and so on.
- That, of course, lasted until the 13th of March
- '38, where my father and I happened to be in Vienna.
- And somebody called us and said, get out while you can.
- Well, the getting out, of course,
- was a temporary, symptomatic relief from great pain.
- But it didn't last long.
- And I was in the streets in Brno and saw the tanks roll
- in the 15th of March in--
- '39.
- --'39.
- But between that--
- I'm sure you know, but Opava is, of course,
- in the Sudeten, which meant that we, sometime in '38,
- moved into the interior, which was supposed to be safe.
- But coming back to the musical training, with the training,
- evidently, came connections.
- And I had my debut in 1935, I believe.
- I was seven years old or something in Vienna
- with the Vienna Symphony.
- That concert was conducted by the recently deceased manager
- or director of the San Francisco Opera, Kurt Herbert Adler.
- He was a conductor.
- And this was I don't know what kind of concert.
- It was a strange program.
- There were some contemporary works
- by Zeisl and Gal, known composers,
- but not of any consequence.
- And I played, I think, Bach A Minor and Mozart A Major.
- This was still in the days where you
- played more than one concerto in an evening.
- Well, then, of course, I mean, many concerts followed.
- I mean, I played very much as a youngster until the age of--
- well, I don't know exactly when it became impossible.
- '38 was OK. '39, I still went to school.
- '40, I don't know how long I was allowed to go to school.
- Did you have to go underground in these clandestine musical
- meetings, like in Prague, which took place after there?
- Well, yeah, I'm a strange case because my mother, who
- had the absolutely clean, but Aryan background
- was kind of the protector of the family.
- So I don't for a fact.
- But I was told, had it not been of a denunciation
- by a colleague of mine who shall remain nameless,
- I could have stayed at the conservatory and finished.
- I had a half year to go.
- I mean, I was an extraordinary--
- I mean-- I don't mean extraordinary.
- I mean a special student.
- And at the age of 12, I guess, I could have finished
- the conservatory in Brno.
- But somebody didn't like it.
- And this actually petitioned the director for me
- to be dismissed.
- There was somebody who also was writing a book about something,
- some Czech violinist who now lives in Germany, who wanted
- to bring up this detail, and I am
- loath to talk about the whole thing.
- I'm even loath there to talk about a detail, which
- it won't help me.
- It won't change my life.
- It may harm somebody.
- And it may not even be true.
- Enough reasons to keep it.
- Yeah, it's-- I don't know.
- I've never been a vindictive person, nor--
- I don't know.
- I don't even want to blame people
- even if I know that there may be some truth in it
- because you sometimes don't know what the motives are.
- You don't know who made them do it and so on.
- And it's needless and useless.
- And I said before.
- What it caused may have happened anyhow, may not have happened.
- Who knows?
- Of course, now, comes a period of a very good school for life.
- One perhaps wishes it would have been
- a different kind of school.
- But actually, it's ironic, when I think that
- in '38 or beginning of '39--
- I forgot now--
- I had a offer to go on tour with a Czech pianist, Jan Kaláb,
- from Olomouc to England and France--
- first France and then England.
- And my parents were afraid that I couldn't come back from there
- because there may be a war.
- So they didn't want me to go.
- Huh.
- That's irony, indeed.
- What would have happened?
- Could have been out and stayed out.
- And you don't know what could have happened.
- I, of course, have to say that my formative years, technically
- speaking, were messed up.
- And I had a lot of things to make up for.
- And I don't make any excuses because I
- have to say, fortunately, I had a successful career.
- And it didn't get to the point where I got a bad review.
- I mean, I maybe stopped in time to play in places
- where people would dare to write bad reviews.
- But as I said earlier, like my other colleague
- from the quartet, I have not talked about it
- because I didn't want it to be considered
- an excuse for whatever.
- And I still don't, as a matter of fact.
- I mean, it is still--
- I wouldn't say taboo subject if somebody asked me.
- But I will not go.
- And I will not tell anybody anything.
- Someday, who knows?
- But in the moment, I don't.
- I'm telling you privately.
- Well, what follows is something that one
- can talk about for many days.
- So it may be a little bit wiser if you zeroed in
- on something specific.
- Well, let's start with when did you have to go
- and what were the circumstances of going to Terezín?
- Oh, well, it was '40--
- oh, I think, '43.
- But if you kill me and wanted to extract
- an exact date, whether it was '42 or '43, I don't know.
- But in any case, it was rather--
- I mean, well after Terezín began.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- I don't even know when.
- Terezín began in the fall.
- The first transports were around,
- I think, November of 1941.
- No, no, it was-- well, it was definitely later.
- Well, you see, because of my mother,
- I was one of the late arrivals.
- And I wasn't there longer than--
- oh, I don't know, was it a year?
- The calendar somehow ran, but it stopped also
- because even though-- well, I was very young.
- I mean, I didn't live by the calendar yet.
- But still, I cannot really remember seasons.
- I don't even know--
- no, I do know, there was snow.
- So I must have been there for a winter or must have come there
- and there was some winter.
- But oh, I would say, one and a half years, at least.
- Now, did you go with other members?
- Did your father go, for example?
- No, no, no.
- He didn't have to go.
- No, he didn't.
- Any other relatives?
- My brother.
- Well, yeah.
- And such and such--
- I mean, there-- quite a few, not close relatives.
- My father had a sister who must have died prior to that.
- We were not close.
- So I don't know.
- I mean, she lived somewhere else.
- And she may have emigrated.
- But she was my father's age or maybe older.
- My father actually was 60 when I was born,
- so it's a big generation gap, meaning
- that she may have been, by that time, 65 or 70,
- and maybe either had died or had gone, so on, so on.
- I just want to clarify, at one point, until you went,
- was there a break in your education
- and your being in the conservatory of several months
- or something before you actually were called up
- for the transport to Terezín?
- Oh, yeah, well, quite a long time.
- The first one was caused, of course, by the expulsion.
- Yes.
- But the second one was caused by not
- being able to study with a teacher--
- not because I couldn't go there or because he wouldn't
- teach me, but he wound up in jail
- because he was a socialist.
- He was one of those teachers who, I think,
- went to Russia in the '30s and may even have been a communist.
- Who knows?
- So of course, he was game for the Gestapo.
- So there was no teacher.
- And my education in those days was autodidactic.
- I mean, I was teaching myself.
- And that actually were--
- when I learned to play the violin, I hate to say that,
- and I don't mean disrespect to my other teachers.
- This in conjunction with two pianists,
- those were Gentile wives of Jewish army officers,
- who wound up in jail or, I don't know, who were--
- they're not yet widowed, but they were just--
- I mean, they just lived.
- And they was pianist.
- And they were very good for me because for the first time,
- I played the Brahms sonata.
- And then I played Tchaikovsky.
- And of course, I played all the major concerti.
- By then I had 52 violin concertos under my belt.
- I remember that number because my father insisted
- that every week, we play one concerto to review it
- so I don't forget.
- Of course, it included many pieces
- that you had never heard of.
- I mean, who plays a Karlowicz concerto,
- a Sinding concerto, D'Ambrosio.
- And you hadn't really played any Czech repertoire?
- Nothing.
- I see.
- I was called upon to play Schubert sonatina.
- And I had to say no because I didn't know what to do with it.
- I suddenly realized that everything I knew,
- no matter how successful I was, I
- knew by some kind of instinct, but mainly, I
- think, thanks to my father and to my teachers.
- I just did.
- And now, suddenly, I had to do something on my own.
- So I mean, that's when I started to teach myself.
- But those two ladies were a great influence
- because we played a repertory that became, actually,
- the staple of my concert repertory.
- Because what I did later on was mainly concerto with orchestra,
- the sonata recitals.
- I may say, at most, 10% of my appearances
- were other than that, recitals of his pieces and so on.
- I mean, I always did something, not--
- nothing major.
- So speaking of the gap, again, dates, I can't name exactly.
- Was it a year?
- Was it almost two years?
- I don't know exactly.
- Anyhow, I was on my own.
- And for a while, I still had lessons.
- Then I had no lessons.
- Then of course, my violin was gone.
- Yes.
- Because of the confiscation?
- Yeah.
- So then I-- of course, I had a violin.
- You always had friends.
- And you went somewhere to practice.
- And I had what's called a mute violin,
- a violin without a body.
- And in addition to this, I had a practice mute.
- So nobody could hear anything.
- So I mean, I carried on as much as I could.
- That must have been a strange experience,
- a little bit like a pianist playing on a dumb keyboard.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, well, first of all, I'm sure it
- wasn't good for the tone and maybe even for the intonation.
- I'm sure I had to make up for it.
- I think there is nothing much more to be said about that time
- because nothing happened.
- Nothing could have happened, except those nice influence
- of those two ladies, with whom-- because while I played
- for the first time the Archduke trio in the Beethoven opus
- 96, where, of course, I could never figure out the rhythm.
- I mean, for an 11-year-old, 12-year-old,
- that was just impossible.
- That one was better.
- It was all sonatas.
- Were you aware of Pavel Haas when you were young in Brno
- or did you only become aware of him when you'd go to seminary?
- No, I knew him in Brno.
- And I, for some reason, I'm, like many people,
- a little bit confused in facts, I mean, in data.
- I did study with Pavel Haas harmony.
- Still in Brno?
- Well, that's what I think.
- I think I started in Brno and then continued in Terezín.
- But I think I would have started then.
- And I think my father felt, well,
- since I can't do anything playing-wise,
- I may as well get educated in this way.
- If I knew where he lived in Brno,
- I might be able to recall because I
- have a photographic memory.
- But I cannot see myself going anywhere for those lessons.
- But it seems to me that I had lessons with him
- already in Brno.
- Yeah.
- I could-- that's a point I could actually verify for you
- because there is a man--
- I don't know what it was in Czechoslovakia,
- but his name is Yaacov Shilo.
- He's a pianist.
- And he teaches in the Jerusalem Academy.
- And he studied two and a half years with Haas.
- And he remembers, even, I think it was November,
- would have been 1937, when his little daughter was born,
- Olga Hasselberg.
- Now, I know her in Brno.
- And he went every week.
- So I can ask him, where did you go?
- When did he get deported from Brno?
- When did he go to--
- Haas, yeah.
- Haas?
- Haas?
- I don't remember.
- But it's certainly.
- I don't think it would have been before '42.
- It must have been probably '42.
- Yeah.
- Now, he was there and went out with one of the last transports
- to Auschwitz in October of 1944.
- And if you played, as you said, in the study
- for string orchestra--
- Oh, yeah.
- --so you were there certainly until the middle
- or the summer of '44.
- Oh, yeah.
- As a matter of fact, the departure date,
- I remember that it was fall.
- Well, it was September.
- I don't know when was the--
- I mean, there were many transports.
- They started at a certain time.
- And they went on.
- I don't know.
- I know that in the fall of October started many mass--
- I mean, they were always mass, 1,000 each time,
- but many, many of them.
- But there was nothing--
- But most of the composers and many of the musicians
- went out in October.
- Well, I think at the same time.
- Karel Ancerl also went.
- Yeah.
- Well, it's basically all at the same time.
- Well, do you know Ancerl?
- No, I didn't meet him.
- Didn't meet him.
- No.
- So how did-- first of all, when you came to Terezín,
- you were young.
- Did the youngsters-- I mean, you were a teenager.
- Did you have to do work?
- I mean, many people talked about this wunderschaft.
- And they had to cope with now this.
- Oh, yeah, sure.
- I had to do all the work and so on.
- And how it was possible to get into the Freizeitgestaltung,
- I don't know.
- I must have met somebody because I didn't
- know any of those people.
- I didn't know-- actually didn't know Gideon.
- I didn't know Sussmann.
- Because it was with this Rafal Sussmann or Romuald Sussmann.
- I actually now know him.
- Yeah, oh, so you know him.
- Romuald.
- Yeah, Romuald, sure.
- Romuald, yeah.
- Because actually, he would be the best source
- of any information because he has been there.
- I don't know whether he was an AK,
- I mean, the one at the very beginning.
- But Frohlich, I think, he was one of the first.
- I'll try to get to interview him.
- Yeah.
- So I don't know who caused it or how it was caused.
- But I think that I knew one of the leaders, the Altestenrat.
- And it was Epstein and Zucker, I think.
- And was Zucker from Brno?
- Otto Zucker?
- That, again, that, I don't know.
- If he was from Brno--
- He was also an amateur violinist?
- Yeah, something.
- Anyhow, I had played for him somewhere.
- And maybe I had gone to him and say, hey, remember?
- I am Pavlichek Link.
- And he maybe had called Mr. Levensky or Steiner,
- for that matter, your friend, the flutist.
- Oh, George.
- Because he had very much to do with the Freizeitgestaltung
- in those days.
- He knew Levensky, who was the--
- I don't know if I would call him the contractor or something.
- Yes, the bass player of the ghetto swingers.
- Yeah.
- Well, yeah, although he did everything.
- I mean, he--
- He existed in the list, official list of the officials
- of the Freizeitgestaltung.
- He's listed as instrumentalmusik.
- Yeah, well he repaired instruments.
- And he did everything.
- And maybe through Zucker, I got it.
- I don't know.
- I don't want to offend somebody by not
- mentioning somebody, and maybe somebody that escaped me.
- But it was not any of the musicians
- that I got to the Freizeitgestaltung.
- And how I got, of course, the violin that I took along
- was, of course, gone.
- Were you aware that music was going on?
- I wasn't aware of anything.
- We were not aware of anything.
- I mean, people who--
- maybe older people--
- Yes.
- --knew something.
- But as far as I know, even my parents didn't know.
- And many people that we thought should have known
- or could have known didn't know anything.
- I mean, to the last days, when we
- were told we are going to go on work detail,
- we believed it in October '44.
- And yeah, finally, we are going to work and be somewhere, I
- don't know, a different place.
- And we'll be fine.
- We didn't understand, when cards came,
- saying that somebody was saying, oh, we are wearing uniforms.
- These were somebody writing from Birkenau.
- And everybody had the idea of being in a boarding school
- or something, where everybody has
- nice, blue tunics or something.
- I mean, those people tried to give us a hint where they are
- and what they are doing.
- We didn't understand.
- No, and no idea what was happening.
- As a matter of fact, there was music,
- but it was just about starting to develop.
- And I don't know what gave it the main impetus, whether it
- was that the Germans wanted to have something prepared
- for the Swedish commission, or for the Swiss Red Cross,
- or something.
- And the look-- I mean, the elder people cunningly
- used the situation, saying, well,
- if we want to appear as a normal community,
- we have to have a cultural life, and music life,
- and this, for which we have to rehearse and have instruments.
- So I mean, a thing developed.
- But I really don't know the origins.
- I mean, I--
- Well, one thing that Karas writes about in his book
- is that, actually, one of the origins of the, at first,
- rather dangerous and illicit musical activity
- without instruments that began in Terezín,
- out in this old school garret, this attic,
- was, in fact, the underground cultural events,
- including music, which were already beginning in Prague
- by 1941 and into 1942--
- or late '40 or something.
- And it was a logical continuation
- because many of the same people found themselves there.
- Yeah.
- And they were just-- wrote the music, you say,
- without instruments.
- In the very beginning, there were no instruments.
- One day, they found a grand piano, without legs,
- and somehow got-- brought up to that attic
- with the cooperation of some of the Czech gendarmes.
- And Klein was able to make it into some operating order.
- Was probably a terrible instrument,
- but it was the beginning.
- And later on, of course, it's my understanding,
- the Germans, in fact, knew and just didn't care, let them sing
- and dance what they wanted.
- But then they began to realize that this
- could serve their propaganda purposes of this paradise
- ghetto, as Himmler called it.
- And so they allowed some of the so-called Prominenten
- to come from Prague with their instruments.
- So Edith Kraus remembers, for example,
- going to the apartment of a certain family
- from Berlin, in fact.
- And they brought a very good piano.
- And they let her come in the mornings.
- And she could practice.
- So more instruments came.
- In any case, the Nazis, as they confiscated all violins,
- so they took other instruments as well.
- There was plenty to bring.
- And in the beginning, also, some people
- smuggled in some instruments.
- And this, at first, there were no notes.
- Apparently, the first chamber concerts and the recitals
- were just what they had in repertoire thereabout.
- Singers played without accompaniment.
- Well, they-- I think we had music.
- But it was a bet that Gideon and Freddie Mark, the cellist,
- and Romuald Sussmann, and myself,
- who was called the Little One because I was very little--
- but I played on a huge violin.
- Since there was no violin, I played on a very small viola
- with violin strings on it.
- And it was awfully loud.
- And we won the bet against Heini Taussig
- that we can play from memory the Mozart G minus piano
- quartet for one tin of liver paste, we got.
- Now, I don't know.
- Of course, I didn't have any of my music, which
- means all my further development was done by memory.
- And I would sometimes go--
- somebody said, well, why don't we
- go and work with Karel Frohlich who was an athletic,
- and good-looking, and properly working violinist.
- And it didn't do me any good.
- But that's beside the point.
- It was a complete different technique and so on.
- But I don't recall having had any material.
- Well, the first mention that Karas makes
- is that you played the violin together with Klein and Freddie
- Mark in the Beethoven opus 70 number 2 and the Brahms
- Opus 8 trios.
- And Ullmann reviewed it.
- And he said about you, Paul, parenthesis, publicly made
- his debut on the violin with a lot of success,
- and is on the way up, and very talented.
- It's the mention which is quoted.
- I haven't seen the original.
- Yeah.
- Well, the-- it is true.
- Yes, I played those two trios.
- And I presume that was the first public.
- How was it to work with him and with Klein,
- in particular, about whom one reads so much
- and hears so much?
- Well, and Gideon was a genius.
- But he was also a very generous giver.
- Don't forget that he was 10 or 15 years older.
- Everybody idolized him, not only girls.
- I mean, he-- first of all, he had a wonderful face.
- And there was something about him that was awe-inspiring.
- He was a wonderful pianist.
- And he was one who you could go and hear practice.
- A quick aside only, because I happened
- to remember of practicing, the mother
- of one of our present faculties here
- was practicing in the Magdeburg--
- or I don't know which-- what the name of the barracks were.
- The kaserne?
- Yeah.
- I think Magdeburg or Hamburg.
- I don't know where the piano was.
- So I knew the mother of one of our present faculty members,
- who had just purely by accident got here.
- So I'm now thinking how this chamber music came,
- with whom I got together first.
- I knew I met Freddie Mark pretty soon.
- Maybe I was already involved in the Freizeitgestaltung,
- and therefore, maybe played in a small ensemble for the teas,
- where everybody got a little piece of paper, a chit,
- and could go and have a tea.
- And that was maybe a combo, where Liebenz--
- This is in the coffeehouse?
- Yeah.
- There may have been--
- maybe it was when--
- was it Taube?
- What was his first name?
- Oh, Carlo Taube.
- Carlo Taube organized a little orchestra.
- He had the Taube Orchestra.
- Yeah.
- And I played only one thing with him.
- And that was when one of those commissions came.
- But I don't know when it was.
- Anyhow.
- They played, I think, also in-- and they probably
- played in the coffeehouse.
- But they must also have played in Stadtkapelle.
- Outside, yes.
- Outside.
- Yes, that was the main thing.
- The coffeehouse, I don't really remember.
- But I remember the coffeehouse because this
- was the headquarters of the Freizeitgestaltung.
- Did you ever go to the coffeehouse to--
- were you allowed to just listen to any music being
- performed there?
- I mean, some works were actually written to be played there.
- For example, I think Egon Ledec's gavotte for string
- quartet was from there.
- And Robert Dauber, certainly.
- Did you know Dauber at all?
- I don't recall.
- Ledec I knew well.
- Yes.
- And I used to go when he and with a [INAUDIBLE] accordion
- player would play in the--
- Oh, Wolfgang Lederer.
- With Lederer, he would play in the courtyards.
- And I would go and listen to him.
- And well, I heard lots of music.
- I would listen to Gideon practice.
- And I then didn't hear quite as much because usually, I
- was participating.
- We played the Brahms sextet with Ancerl and Zusman
- playing the violas.
- Evidently, I played the violin, either with Frohlich,
- as a way, of course, Frohlich and me--
- Tausig.
- Tausig.
- --or Tausig and me, we did the Brahms sextet.
- And I don't know who was the second cellist.
- There must be a second cello there.
- I'm sure that somewhere.
- But as far as public performances go,
- I remember one string quartet we did, a second movement
- of Brahms B flat major quartet.
- I think that was the first time when
- I could with real grown-ups play first violin.
- Actually, there was a--
- You played in front of this quartet?
- Well, no, you see, Frohlich and Heini Taussig,
- and Romuald Sussmann, and Freddie Mark at the quartet.
- But it so happened that at one time,
- Freddie didn't want, or couldn't play, or something.
- And I was given the chance to play
- first violin, which of course, for me, was wonderful there.
- And that was a Brahms quartet in the the Sokolovna.
- That was where the best piano was.
- And that became, later on, the concept place, as it were.
- I think this is a place where Ancerl conducted the--
- The string orchestra.
- --the string orchestra.
- And the Ninth Symphony, beginning with a clarinet
- by Weiss was his name, the clarinetist.
- Fritz Weiss.
- Fritz Weiss played the bassoon, probably, as a counterpoint.
- How did it feel with all of the work
- that you had to do, the living conditions, the uncertainty
- about what was happening to people to find yourself there,
- nevertheless, making music, rehearsing,
- performing for what must have been extremely appreciative
- audiences?
- Well, I think one has to keep in mind the age.
- Yes.
- A 13, 14, or 15-year-old--
- I don't know, I have to count a little bit-- let's
- say 15-year-old is confused enough
- that, in addition of a very trying situation
- doesn't make much difference.
- Of course, I was as self-centered as anybody would
- be, professionally speaking.
- So all that mattered to me was that I could practice.
- And I would practice in basements.
- And I had friends who made sure I had a place to practice.
- And eventually, of course, I lived in a place
- for young people, where the program
- was structured so that I really had my practice time.
- One of my supervisors was Karel Reiner, a Czech composer.
- So he understood.
- And there were others.
- What did you have to work at during the day, non-musically?
- At that time, once I got there, it was--
- actually, no, when I got to that place,
- I was already full time in the Freizeitgestaltung.
- Before, well, I don't know what the detail was.
- I mean, we were called up, and marched out,
- and worked on the outside, maybe moving stones
- from one side to the other.
- It wasn't always-- it didn't seem
- like it was work that needed to be done.
- You've said several times that you
- were full time in the Freizeitgestaltung.
- Does that mean that you had a certain task or something
- you were responsible for?
- Because the list has many different departments,
- not all dealing with music.
- But within music, Guido Klein is listed, I think, as--
- I can't remember.
- Levinsky is for instrumental music.
- And somebody else was for coffeehouse music.
- And someone else was for some other category.
- Did you have a specific assignment?
- Or do you mean simply that they allowed
- you to become more involved in the performances?
- I think the latter is it, is the case.
- Because I don't know that I had to do something.
- And again, forgive me for not being precise and being
- so vague.
- I know that I played some smaller
- ensembles in the Kaffeehaus.
- Now, you spoke of--
- let me interrupt you for a moment.
- You spoke of living part of the time with some younger people.
- And so I come back, again, to this young fellow,
- who George Steiner did know, Robert Dauber.
- He was the son of Adolf Dauber, who
- was a well-known violinist, conductor, and arranger
- of light music in Prague.
- And Robert, in 1942, was 17 years old.
- And his father didn't go.
- He was there.
- And he was a cellist.
- And he was a pianist.
- And he had composed some pieces.
- And I have copies of several postcards
- he wrote to his parents, saying that he
- is playing chamber music.
- And he goes to performances.
- And he is able to take showers, and so
- on, and that he's writing a serenade, which
- would be performed to the coffeehouse, which
- in fact, you'll hear on cassette because I recorded it.
- And so it seems that perhaps, if somehow
- being with young people, were you
- aware of other young musicians?
- Because they would have been so close to you in age.
- No, not really.
- The Jugendheim, or whatever it was, where I lived,
- there wasn't a single other musician there,
- except the supervisor, who was a son of one of the leaders
- of the whole camp--
- Kramer.
- And he wasn't a performing.
- He was, I think, a conductor, or a singer, or chorus person.
- And no, so--
- Was it Rudi Freudenfeld?
- No, Freudenfeld, no, no.
- He was somewhere else.
- But I-- yeah, I knew Freudenfeld very well.
- Even though Brundibár didn't have an orchestra,
- it was just piano, and the theater, and the stage.
- Did you play in Brundibár Ensemble?
- No.
- You did play in the Bastien und Bastienne?
- Yes, yes, indeed.
- In Brundibár, I didn't play, at least, I don't recall.
- I always thought that Brundibár was done with piano.
- Am I wrong?
- No, it was done with this-- it was really orchestrated there.
- But he made a kind of pick-up group.
- And Klein played.
- And several other people played.
- It wasn't a whole orchestra.
- But the recording, I mean, from-- at least at the time
- that it was filmed for the Red Cross, for the propaganda film,
- one sees the hands of the conductor.
- And you hear, I mean, there's a trumpet.
- And there's clarinet.
- It's a small ensemble, medium size.
- Tell me about-- you spoke briefly about your studies
- with Karl Frohlich.
- What about the coaching that you did with Bernard Kaff?
- Well, Kaff was a formidable figure.
- He was not an easy person.
- I think he was demanding beyond my--
- I wouldn't say expectations.
- I think he was demanding beyond my capacity in that time
- because I wasn't thinking musically yet in those terms.
- He was a seasoned musician of great reputation,
- which preceded him.
- I knew Bernie Kaff was somebody.
- So you already were shaking in your boots
- before you went there.
- And you always felt you couldn't quite do what he demanded.
- And most likely, it was the case.
- Maybe it was just the innate fear that one had.
- What did you work on with him?
- Did you do sonatas with him?
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Yes, there was some sonata.
- My repertoire was not that sophisticated in those days.
- I knew a few sonatas, which I learned just briefly
- before then, when I stopped playing the concertos.
- My literature was mainly concertos and much
- of useless literature as well.
- And maybe he told me that most of the things that I'm playing
- is useless.
- We may have done some Bach.
- I remember more vividly the harmony lessons with Haas.
- Tell me about that.
- That's very interesting.
- Because he had a very alive way of going about it.
- It wasn't just the cut and dry theory
- that you just write down.
- It started me to think of why harmony at all exists
- and what it is good for, which, of course, made
- all the difference in my thinking for later on.
- Sure.
- I don't think I have ever played with Kaff.
- I remember him playing.
- But one thing has to be also said,
- that the whole musical life was extensive enough there to have
- had divisions-- divisions in the sense that there were
- the people who were around Bernie Kaff,
- and the people who were around Gideon,
- and there were people who were around F--
- Rafi Schachter.
- --Schachter and so on.
- And I happened to be in the Gideon group, more or less.
- And I don't even know whether Gideon and Kaff, whether they
- were close friends, or whether they got along,
- didn't get along.
- I don't know.
- But already then, I knew that there are cliques.
- And some people think more highly
- of somebody than somebody else.
- Yeah.
- Tell me something very, very important.
- Do you recall hearing any of performances
- or being involved in any performances of music composed
- there?
- Klein wrote a fantasy and fugue for string quartet.
- He wrote a string trio.
- He wrote his own piano sonata, which Eliska Kleinova tells me
- that he didn't actually play.
- He played for her.
- Did you hear any of his music or Ullmann's music?
- Well, Ullmann because I did the rehearsals of the--
- Opera?
- --of the opera.
- Were you playing the open?
- No, I was in the pit, or what role I was playing.
- It was a violin, I think, a string quintet and trumpet.
- Yeah, so I played one of the violins.
- I don't know who the others were.
- And that I remember.
- Ullmann produced some concerts with what was called the Studio
- für Neue Musik.
- And one-- the only two programs which I've seen, one of them
- is Zemlinsky, Schoenberg, Aber, Mahler,
- even a piece by Bruno Walter.
- The other one was Terezín composers.
- And there were two Hasidic dances for two strings
- by Erwin--
- Zikmund Schul.
- There, Karel Berman sang his Poupata song cycle
- on Czech poetry.
- Klein had written four songs to poems of Peter Kien.
- The cycle of poetry is called "Die Peststadt."
- And his cycle of music, which is lost, unfortunately,
- it was just called "Die Pest."
- And there was a piece for string quartet,
- which was, I think, a Hebraic rhapsody, also by Schul.
- You don't know?
- Have you heard any of those neue musik concerts?
- I must have heard because I remember the songs,
- both Berman and Gideon Klein's.
- But I also remember a piece by Krása, which he wrote for us.
- And I don't know who us were.
- Was it trio?
- He wrote a theme and variations for string quartet.
- And he wrote a string trio, which is the dance.
- And he wrote a passacaglia and fugue for string trio.
- Is it one of those?
- I think one of the string trios.
- Which of the two, I really can't say.
- You also have to understand that my sophistication for music
- beyond the beginning of the 20th century was not very extensive.
- I mean, when I played at the conservatory in Brno, the three
- impromptus by Martino, I thought it was just terrible, I mean.
- Yeah.
- Sorry that my knowledge of the music wasn't much.
- But of course, I participated where I did.
- Not only that, I was told that I should hear this and this.
- I was very close to Karel Ancerl and Karel Ancerl
- was a very good father, a very good mentor.
- And aside from playing chamber music with him--
- he was not officially in any quartet,
- but we played chamber music with him.
- We means Freddie Mark, and myself, and Karel Ancerl and--
- well, there must have been.
- Because he played viola, so I would have been as a violinist.
- I do not know who played.
- But it was neither Heini nor Karel Frohlich.
- It was somebody else.
- So he invited you to be in the string orchestra?
- Yeah.
- And that's from where I remember the study for strings.
- And there was Dvorak's Zigeuner Lied.
- And [INAUDIBLE].
- And [INAUDIBLE] meditation.
- Yes, that's right.
- And I think one of them is [INAUDIBLE]..
- There were four pieces.
- I couldn't-- if I brought the book, I could look.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Well, evidently, somebody has done good research
- and knew what was going on.
- Do you remember anything of the rehearsals of the Haas piece?
- Was he present?
- Did he say anything?
- It's a very demanding piece of string writing.
- I know.
- I know.
- I know.
- I know.
- But no, I have to be honest.
- And I must say, I have no recollection
- because I had my hands full.
- Don't forget-- well, I shouldn't lecture you.
- Only because I could play the Paganini concerto
- doesn't mean that I could sight read in the F major scale.
- So I mean, for me, it was a big honor to be asked.
- I think I was principal or something, maybe second.
- And I got the--
- is there a film of that?
- Yes.
- Well, was Levitch concert mastering?
- Because he was, of course, the senior violinist,
- having been the--
- he was one of the concert masters of the Prague
- Philharmonic, I think.
- I think he was.
- I think he was.
- All I knew [CROSS TALK]
- You can see it, unfortunately, from this.
- This is from the film.
- And you must be there.
- This is from the film, yes.
- Yes.
- I actually was standing.
- No, I cannot see.
- Well, they can't see there.
- At some point, you'll see the film.
- I'll bring it with me when I come in February.
- And we can stop it and move it slowly.
- Yeah, actually.
- Hans Krása, for example, is seen sitting there.
- This one looks like Levitch.
- So maybe he was sitting.
- Is it the inside of the first time?
- I think it is.
- But that doesn't look like Frohlich.
- That is not.
- Which one?
- This one.
- No, that's Pavel Haas.
- Yeah.
- So I think somebody might have--
- But I think this might be-- because that's
- similar to the drawing which exists
- of him that Peter Kien did.
- Oh, yeah, maybe the stand is here.
- Maybe he was in there.
- Yes.
- I can send you, even, a glossy of it.
- And then you can have a good look at it.
- Well, then anyhow, well, we can look.
- No, I don't.
- I don't.
- I mean, I had my hands full playing all that repertory.
- And it all was to me completely new.
- Did you go to any of the voice recitals?
- Did you go to any of Karel Berman's recitals?
- Oh, yeah, sure.
- In April of '44, he gave a recital,
- which he had the Dvorak Zigeunerlieder,
- the Michelangelo songs of Hugo Wolf, something of Beethoven,
- and he did the premiere of the four songs of Chinese poems
- that's written here.
- Yeah.
- Was that in the Magdeburg?
- Could have been.
- Could have been.
- Well, I basically went to everything.
- I went to Schachter's chorus.
- I went to voice recitals.
- I didn't go to the plays.
- I mean, there were quite a few plays.
- I mean, theater didn't mean.
- Yes.
- But I knew that they were going on.
- Did you hear Edith Kraus?
- She was then called Steiner Kraus Yeah.
- In the concert in the city hall, yes, which was a--
- She gave an old Bach concert, for example.
- No.
- And she played, in fact, when they
- did "Carmen," Kurt Gerron was there,
- the stage director of "Carmen."
- They had one performance.
- And the music was divided in two pianos--
- Franz Eugen Klein was the conductor, played one piano.
- And Edith played the other piano.
- It had just one performance.
- Well, I remember Klein as well.
- I mean, that, the other Klein, not with Gideon.
- Yes, yes.
- I forget now who the people where in "Bastien."
- I mean, [INAUDIBLE],, it was Berman.
- But the two ladies, the names escape me, who they were.
- And that was a small, basically string orchestra.
- It was arranged.
- I think that [? Carlos ?] mentioned that it was--
- And that was conducted by Hansa somebody.
- No, no, here, this is him.
- He mentions that the production of "Bastien and Bastienne"
- was accompanied by string quartet.
- It was you, first violin, Bloch-- someone named Bloch,
- and he doesn't give the first name.
- And he doesn't even put him in the index,
- but he was second violin.
- Someone named Prakus was, thirdly, viola.
- And Dauber was cello.
- And he doesn't say Robert, but it must have been him.
- Yeah.
- Well, the strangest thing is that I know I played this.
- I don't know who the other people were.
- And I'm not that self-centered not to know my quartet.
- This was a quartet.
- I know it was conducted, which means I didn't study it.
- So I didn't have that much.
- The Bloch name doesn't even mean that-- it could have
- been one of the Dutch people.
- No idea.
- It doesn't say who conducted it, but I
- know it was somebody other than the regular conductor, who
- was a young man who did it.
- But that I cannot recall the quartet, it's strange.
- Did you have any contact with Ullmann?
- I mean, other than knowing he was there
- and perhaps seeing him.
- No, not--
- Did he-- I mean, Georg Steiner says,
- he came to the rehearsals of the Ullmann's practice.
- But he just recalls that he was there, he sat quietly,
- and he scored.
- He doesn't remember that he said anything.
- Basically, that's my recollection as well.
- Also, I wouldn't have known what he said.
- I mean, if somebody then said something
- about how to rehearse a 12-tone piece
- and what has to come through, I wouldn't even
- know what balance means or something.
- I mean, I was a young kid playing the violin.
- Did you hear any of the cabarets?
- There were there cabarets of Karel Svenk
- that were very popular.
- Yes.
- I heard so much about them that if I said I heard it,
- it could be that I really didn't hear them,
- but I heard about them.
- But certain people told me so much that I almost
- think I have seen.
- So it's like me remembering how I fell out
- from my baby carriage when I was a half-year old.
- Of course, I don't remember it.
- But it was told so often the family, it's so vividly from--
- to this day, I see it where it happened in [INAUDIBLE],,
- and how I fell out, and who was with it.
- And of course, I couldn't remember it.
- And there was another cabaret that was actually
- produced by Kurt Gerron.
- It was called "Karussell."
- And Martin Roman-- did you know a Martin Roman?
- He was a Berlin-born--
- I don't recall.
- --jazz pianist who took over the Ghetto Swingers
- at the time a little shortly before they
- began to do the filming of the propaganda film.
- You also have to keep in mind that there
- was a division between the Czech and the German.
- That seems to have been very strong division.
- Yeah, not necessarily an adversary thing.
- But there was-- everything around Gideon
- was a Czech thing.
- And then somebody else had the German cabaret or something.
- And we just didn't quite know what was going on there.
- And maybe it was even in the Kaffeehaus
- that they had Czech hours and German hours or something.
- They did some skits in German when the Germans
- came in the afternoon.
- Oh, now, that's a very important point.
- And one-- there seem to be contradicting
- reports a little bit.
- Do you have any recollection that the Germans
- came to hear any music in the coffeehouse?
- Or did you mean-- wait, you didn't mean the German Germans,
- you meant the German Jewish musicians?
- Yeah, yeah.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Oh, OK.
- Or poor population.
- No, the-- no, no, the SS, I don't
- know whether they came in anywhere to.
- I don't think.
- I think, basically, except for a few command
- performances, such as the "Requiem," they didn't come.
- They didn't listen.
- So no, they--
- He is very adamant about that point,
- that we played only for Jews.
- We never played for the Germans.
- But I don't remember any situation.
- Because if you played, let's say, in the Kaffeehaus,
- even if a German came in, I mean, you had to stop.
- And you had to stand in attention.
- I mean, whenever somebody came in, I
- mean, that meant [GERMAN],, wherever it was,
- whether it was in your barracks, where you were sleeping or not.
- When the announcement give, somebody came over,
- we had to be up.
- So no, at least, that's the way I remember it.
- And one confuses it.
- There were some good performances
- in the Stadtkapelle outside of the Ghetto Swingers.
- And Fritz Weiss was still in it, even though the directorship
- was taken over by Martin Roman.
- There was a guitarist who became also the drummer named
- Coco Schumann.
- He's still alive in Berlin.
- And that is-- when you say the Stadtkapelle, that
- would be the gazebo?
- [CROSS TALK]
- Gazebo?
- Yeah, yeah.
- Exactly.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Well, I don't know how much I heard of that is.
- Well, you may not know that, but that compound
- of the center of the city became later
- on an outdoor factory for wooden boxes or something.
- Oh, that I hadn't heard.
- I heard that it was just sort of neglected and finally
- deteriorated.
- No, but later on, there was some activity on that square,
- I mean, some industrial activity, as it were.
- Something was produced there.
- Yes.
- I didn't go by.
- I mean, I remember only having played once
- in one of those command performances.
- These are some pictures of the Ghetto Swingers
- on the stage of the Stadtkapelle.
- Behind it in some larger pictures,
- you can actually see some of the fake storefronts.
- You know, there was a store of Herr and Kleider.
- And there was a bank.
- And when I was in Terezín, it was pointed out to me
- the place which is now just a restaurant,
- which was the coffeehouse.
- You know, I have never gone.
- Yeah.
- And if you see the bass player, of course,
- that's probably Libensky.
- Libensky, yeah.
- And I don't know if you can see, in those pictures--
- I have others-- who the violinists were.
- I believe I have their names someplace.
- I have no idea.
- I cannot recall.
- If you showed me a picture of this,
- I would say, well, I have never seen that face before.
- I think there were three violinists.
- Yeah, it must be.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- I'd like to go back once more, if you can remember anything,
- you say that you do distinctly recall that you heard it
- on the concert of the string trio music songs of Karel
- Berman and the songs of Klein.
- And you're the first person I've come across who remembers
- at least hearing them.
- It's probably too much to ask if the music itself had still
- made any kind of an impression.
- But I say that because his string trio, which you'll hear,
- and you perhaps, it seems, didn't know it there,
- is very Janacek, Bartok-oriented with a slow movement,
- with variations on the Moravian folksong.
- Whereas the piano sonata is very much a kind of--
- and they sort of--
- Play it out.
- And so I've been so curious because I know the texts.
- Yeah.
- And unfortunately, you ask a source that cannot be faulted
- for not knowing anything about music in that sense.
- Sure.
- So I can't even tell you whether I liked it.
- Basically, I was so awed by what was
- going on, being so young, that of course, Berman
- had a wonderful voice.
- And I liked him.
- And I knew him.
- And he was a little bit father to me.
- But I know nothing.
- I cannot remember anything about the song.
- Also, even though I worked with Haas,
- it doesn't mean that it brought me closer to the music
- because we were not far enough for me.
- I mean, we hadn't gone.
- Did you still have exercises to do, harmonizations--
- Well, yeah, we were.
- --get the closest with him?
- Yeah, sure, we were still in the rudiments, as it were.
- In Louie [? Tweel ?] harmony book, the one which is,
- I think, out of fashion over the past 50 years.
- Nobody uses Louie [? Tweel ?] anymore.
- But it's nice old book.
- Who gave you music, actually?
- Because there was music.
- Yeah, well, that's--
- I mean, I see copies of music.
- Edith Kraus has a copy of, I don't know, whatever it is.
- And it's got the rubber stamp of the Theresienstadt
- Ghetto-Bücherei.
- And it belonged to Karel Reiner.
- And his signature is there.
- And somehow, Klein got it.
- And his signature is there.
- And Edith went at liberation and just took about this book.
- Well, I think that the Altestenrat, the leaders,
- requested that certain things be brought.
- Maybe some people had things sent from their home.
- And it was officially let go through because it was needed.
- Also, people like Romuald Sussmann,
- who worked for a completely different organization-- he
- worked for the agriculture department.
- And Kurz Avi, who was his boss, if he made him
- a good Slivovitz, which Romuald knew how to do, he would do him
- favors.
- And I don't say that he did.
- But I say, it is possible you may find out from him that he
- asked me to write to his girlfriend in Prague,
- and that she would send him the viola
- sonatas of [PERSONAL NAME] or something.
- So many things were acquired this way
- because there were a few people who were not necessarily
- friendly, but who in exchange for whatever services
- they got would do things.
- And did you write home?
- Oh, yeah.
- My father died during the time.
- He died a few months after getting there.
- So Mother was alone.
- Wait, after you got there or after he?
- He didn't go to Terezín?
- No, no, no.
- No, he didn't.
- He stayed in Brno.
- And so letters were read.
- We knew that everything was censored.
- And what does a 12-year-old write or 15-year-old write?
- Did you get any packages?
- Yeah.
- And some of them had everything in it.
- Usually, the ones that contained only bread, I think,
- were undisturbed.
- And some others, you knew that something
- was taken out, whatever it was.
- I do not think that I ever requested strings or something
- like that.
- That was through the fact that [INAUDIBLE],, those things
- were provided.
- We always found things.
- And being friendly with Libensky--
- I have no idea what happened to Libensky.
- Of course, Freddie Mark and Gideon,
- they all went to Auschwitz and never returned.
- Romuald is here.
- What do you know about Libensky?
- I think that most of the--
- when Martin got to Auschwitz, Martin Roman, the conductor
- of the Ghetto Swingers, he found that many of his players
- were there.
- And he had to form another orchestra.
- And they had no music.
- And I asked him what they'd play.
- And said, well, we played German marches.
- And they kind of improvised.
- They make a little counterpoints when they had to play.
- When they were going to work, then
- they had to play when they were coming back from work,
- it was in Birkenau.
- And they sent Meyer from the LaSalle quartet
- probably was in that under his direction.
- That's what they did.
- They just made music.
- When it was found that they came and they announced,
- well, they have musicians, they said, oh, well, now, we
- have something to do.
- Now, did you also go to Auschwitz?
- Actually, I was--
- But you did a play?
- No, I didn't.
- Not there, but I went to Gleiwitz after that.
- And I made to one of the SS people a remark.
- Somehow, I was trying to get in that I
- play the violin because I wanted to get hold of a violin.
- Stupid.
- But it wasn't so stupid because he overheard what I said.
- And he said, well, I mean, what do you mean like a violin?
- What does he have to do with violin?
- Well, I think I said, naively, well, if somebody plays violin
- all his life.
- Of course, one thinks of such.
- Oh, you play the violin.
- Next day, he came, brought the violin and said, [GERMAN]..
- So I was allowed to entertain--
- well, I don't know, New Year's Day, or Christmas,
- or something, the whole working population.
- Actually, there--
- At the labor camp?
- Yeah.
- There, I had actually worse experience with the kapos
- than with the SS.
- They were a tough bunch of people.
- I don't want to use any worse names.
- What was the name of that camp again?
- Little Gleiwitz.
- Gleiwitz.
- Which was a factory for the production of--
- they said they were the heads for the V-2, the cones.
- And I was an electrical welder.
- So you went just in and out of Auschwitz?
- Well, unfortunately, in for quite some time, not--
- I mean, it seemed endless.
- But maybe, it wasn't endless--
- a few months or something.
- I asked you earlier what it was like, somehow,
- emotionally in any way at the time.
- And I understood your response of being
- young and just involved in what you were doing.
- But how has it seemed over the years, when you think back?
- I mean, you said before we even began
- that it's still with you very much, even though you
- haven't talked about it.
- Yeah, well, sure, it is because on one hand,
- you realize that you are one of the few survivors.
- And you kind of question how the world
- works, that so many thousands who are no worse than you
- yourself didn't survive.
- And you, who may be worse, did.
- So anyhow, this kind of thinking,
- of what kind of justice.
- On the other hand, of course, one doesn't bemoan the fact
- that one is alive.
- That's one thing.
- The second thing, of course, one, in more thinking,
- has to admit that it has taken out a good chunk of one's life.
- But the other thing, that's--
- and I am kind of a person who sees
- things in a positive light if possible.
- It was a tough, but very good school for life.
- I think it would have been entirely conceivable that I
- would have turned into an egocentric kind
- of post-wunderkind.
- There are those you may find in New York
- and in other places for whom the world involves only
- around themselves.
- Playing concertos as long as someone lets them.
- Yeah.
- And I think one has learned certain values
- that one had to learn and maybe wouldn't have learned
- under normal circumstances.
- So I think it is only human and it's
- healthy to see positive sides in the most negative aspect
- of thing that our own defense mechanism that makes us
- see something good in everything.
- Now, do you say that with reference in general
- to the conditions and the life?
- Or is the music that you were able to do also
- an important component of that?
- Well, I was just coming to that.
- Here was my comma.
- Yes.
- I must say that I have learned more music in that I
- don't know how brief period it was
- compared to the other studies.
- I can't put it in percentages, but let
- me say that I have begun to become a musician where
- I was a violin player until that time.
- And evidently, a good one because I
- was paid well for my concerts, and got good reviews,
- and so on.
- And it has nothing to do with me.
- It has to do with good teachers and so on, and managers,
- or whatnot.
- But I suddenly started to realize that music
- consists of many other aspects.
- And I think that's where my maturing or fermenting, call it
- what you want, started.
- Well, you suddenly give a thought
- and become aware that music is not
- a succession of notes that is presented
- for a public that pays, but that there is more to it.
- And of course, still being young, it somehow was dormant.
- But this was the beginnings where one started to think,
- was it--
- I mean, music isn't white and black, good and bad,
- and fast and slow, that there are--
- Right, of course.
- --shades of things.
- But then, of course, look, association
- with ripe musicians, like Ancerl who was by then,
- even though not yet a famous conductor,
- but he was an experienced person.
- He did all the theater stuff.
- That's all he could do in Prague with--
- Oh, with the liberated theater in Czech.
- The theater, yeah, which made him also a little bit more
- liberated.
- I don't want to use the word wrongly.
- He wasn't a square type musician.
- I mean, maybe he didn't want to do it or had to.
- But I tell you, learn more by doing with the Unterhaltung
- musik, entertainment music, than you
- learn by playing only Haydn symphonies--
- a certain flexibility, a certain musicianly
- playing that doesn't have to be correct,
- but it has to be convincing.
- And something like that, Ancerl already had then.
- I mean, I didn't even know whether he was a good conductor
- or not.
- What do I know?
- As long as his beat was down, that was the beginning, then
- he was a good conductor.
- And unfortunately, I had no way of seeing his rise in Prague
- because it took place, actually, after I left.
- He started here at the Radio Orchestra and so on,
- but in the theater.
- He did lots of operas.
- Yes.
- But I didn't play under him then,
- even though I remember one of the last things
- that [? Hank ?] Ancerl said to me,
- that he so much wanted to play with me
- during his professional years.
- It never got to.
- I was never soloist with him.
- I played with many great conductors, but never with him
- and never was his concertmaster.
- And so it just didn't happen.
- He didn't live long enough.
- Maybe.
- Did you have anything musically to do with Taube?
- Except playing in that--
- His orchestra?
- --I think it was a very brief period.
- It was the preparation for as a special Swedish commission
- who came to.
- So at that program.
- Look, the propaganda film, which the next time we meet,
- I'll show it to you, all of the background music
- is by Jewish composers.
- Well, except Bruch's Kol Nidrei, with the two Kol
- Nidre because it's Kol Nidrei.
- That's Offenbach.
- From Orpheus in the Underworld, there's the "Cancan."
- There is some East Jewish sort of [NON-ENGLISH] tunes.
- There's one [VOCALIZING].
- And apparently, from a list I've seen that Kurt Gerron typed
- up or had typed up in his ideas for the final editing
- of the film, there is Adolf Dauber, the same Daubers,
- potpourri of such tunes.
- And of course, we have no idea who--
- what those orchestras which are playing.
- But at that, for example, also, there
- was the Mendelssohn's E minor piece, the slow movement.
- In the scene where you see them in the library,
- I mean, there was a library.
- Of course, looks glorious in the film.
- It wasn't so beautiful.
- But it did exist.
- And who the players were, who decided on what music for what
- scene, we'll never know.
- And I'm wondering if you remember
- anything of what you might have played in Taube's orchestra.
- The only thing that I remember that there was basically
- solemn music and that I felt that it was actually
- beneath my dignity because I was a chamber music.
- I played three years with Gideon, and with Freddie,
- and so on.
- And you know, especially a European is a snob.
- And I am.
- Well, I played only one show in my life,
- somewhere in Bloomington, they thought
- I would fall through the floor.
- I don't know if it was a little Abner show or something
- or for a shows.
- Every other faculty member played it,
- and was glad to get the $80, and so on.
- And can't say that for me because this
- was a culture shock.
- So I mean, that was something that I
- had to do because well, I had to do it.
- I was told to do it.
- So I didn't look at it with great something.
- But the only thing that I remember--
- because that was relatively good music--
- was a melange, a medley of Dvorak tunes.
- Yeah.
- Because I remember that even during this orchestra version,
- there was an excerpt from the A major quintet.
- Maybe it was even a cello solo, and Freddie Mark played it.
- He was a very good player, the cellist.
- Do you have any recollection of hearing
- any of the choruses singing?
- Well, I mean what Schachter did, most of the things, I heard.
- And I found it.
- There was a chorus, an amateur group,
- I think, from Vienna led by someone named Subak.
- And they specialized in Jewish material.
- That I don't remember.
- I don't know the name, either.
- And Eliska Kleinova, you knew there?
- Oh, yeah.
- Oh, yeah.
- Well, she was Kraus's wife--
- I know that.
- --then, or so it seemed.
- Right.
- And it was strange.
- I mean, he was what, 60?
- And she was 30 or 40?
- No, he couldn't have been 60 because he was born in 1899.
- OK.
- So he was 50 or--
- He about 40-46.
- Oh, 46.
- Oh, but he, and Ullmann, and Haas had--
- were 46-47.
- The same?
- Oh, yeah?
- Well, but this, look, for me, was an old man.
- I was 18 years old.
- Sure, sure.
- So it was an old man.
- And he considerably younger.
- I mean she was older than Gideon, older by a few years.
- And Gideon was in his early 20s or something.
- Gideon was about 25.
- Or something, yeah.
- So I mean, still.
- No, so I knew her.
- I didn't-- no, I saw her after the war.
- I met Eliska, Liza, as she was called, in Prague.
- We didn't have much in common.
- I mean, I knew the conductor of "Brundibár,"
- Beethoven Freudenfeld.
- Though his mother had something to do with this young people's
- home where I stayed.
- She always thought I was so neat.
- And she didn't know how dirty my collar was during--
- around the corner.
- She always said that I looked like they just took me out
- from a box.
- Did you know, she was an amateur musician.
- And she was a nurse in charge of the children's infirmary, Ilse
- Weber.
- And she used to sing her own songs
- and accompany herself with a guitar.
- Only the name.
- And I wouldn't know how to associate her--
- You might not have known her.
- --with what.
- If you didn't go to the infirmary,
- you might not have had to get it.
- Well, I was in the infirmary once, but I was so sick,
- so I don't know it.
- I was hospitalized twice for--
- along with jaundice once.
- And that was in [INAUDIBLE].
- Pneumonia.
- Yes.
- And Zikmund Schul, you ever heard?
- No, no, at least I cannot recall him.
- He had more interest in writing Jewish works per se
- than most of them.
- There was another violinist that the name has never
- surfaced, Tommy Mandl.
- You know this [INAUDIBLE]?
- Yeah.
- He [INAUDIBLE].
- And after the war was over, I think
- a teacher went to conservatory or something.
- He was not involved.
- He-- I don't know why he wasn't involved in anything.
- I think we played for each other.
- Or maybe I taught him.
- He may not have been as advanced or something.
- Yeah.
- We'll have to see somehow that you
- get to see Karel [INAUDIBLE].
- I mean, that's rather unthinkable.
- What he cites as having from you is
- a taped letter from Louisville.
- It's entirely possible.
- I don't know.
- He may have written me a letter.
- I think that he had.
- He said, he responded by same the following day.
- He-- I think he wrote the letter when I came here,
- even before I was here.
- There was a letter here, which the then-chairman
- of the department gave me, which had some questions,
- I seem to recall.
- But I may also confuse it with a letter
- from Stefan Pandula, who was a Czech violinist living
- in Germany, who was writing a--
- a historian wanted to dig out something
- of that thing I was talking to you in the beginning.
- OK.
- Let me read you just as we-- in fact,
- we can more or less formally end it here.
- Ullmann made a statement-- when you see the book here,
- you'll see the full statement.
- It reads 19-- made it 50 years afterwards
- instead of where it published a few months before he died.
- But he concluded, he said, it must be emphasized
- that Theresienstadt, it would serve to enhance, not impede
- my musical activities, that by no means
- did we sit weeping on the banks of the waters of Babylon
- and that our endeavor with respect to art
- was commensurate with our will to live.
- Looking back, do you think, in any way, of it as--
- or perhaps only in retrospect--
- as a kind of cultural, spiritual resistance
- on the part of the Jews who were doing it,
- or just a happiness in being able to fill their time
- with something to achieve.
- Well, no, no, no.
- There was no happiness.
- I mean, it was survival, as you know.
- Culture is very often a survival mechanism for nations,
- as it is for smaller groups or whatever groups.
- Because after everybody fight, you
- know that there is perhaps more chance
- in surviving if you are unified at least in spirit, if not
- in anything else.
- And how the adults were thinking about survival or not,
- I can't say.
- I know that the only gnawing thought was will the war end?
- And how will it end?
- How long will it last?
- Because we had those pessimists who would say,
- oh, the war will never be over.
- And some thought it will be over in a few months.
- When you're young, you lean a little bit more
- toward optimism.
- But you don't think clearly.
- I mean, it was not.
- Anybody who said otherwise, that a young person was thinking,
- oh, gee, I'm going to die, or the other one will say, oh,
- that's--
- it would blow over and I will make with my plans.
- And I will fall in love because that girl will wait for me--
- none of that.
- You were at a--
- what to call it-- an impasse.
- You didn't think in either direction.
- Back, I mean, meaning it's all over or ahead because it's
- going on.
- You didn't.
- I mean, that is my honest opinion.
- I think it would be nice to be able to say, oh, yes, I
- had those visions and so on.
- Sure.
- No.
- Sure.
- Sure.
- But I have visions of you missing your flight.
- No, I think let's--
Overview
- Interviewee
- Paul Kling
- Date
-
interview:
1989 October 12
- Geography
-
creation:
Victoria (B.C.)
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Emilie Berendsen Bloch, Benjamin Bloch, and Ariel Bloch
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
2 sound cassettes.
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
- Personal Name
- Kling, Paul.
Administrative Notes
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- Emilie Berendsen Bloch, Benjamin Bloch, and Ariel Bloch donated the archive of Professor David Bloch to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2012.
- Funding Note
- The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 09:37:24
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn558990
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Archive of Professor David Bloch, musicologist, founder and director of the Terezin Music Memorial Project, and Israeli institute devoted to the documentation and study of music and music making at the Theresienstadt concentration camp in the former Czechoslovakia and at other localities under German occupation during the Second World War.
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Uri Bas discusses his musical family; the beginning of the war; being sent to the Terezin ghetto on one of the first transports when he was 13 years old; playing the violin and even continuing music lessons in the ghetto, especially harmony; hearing the music in Terezin played in different venues; a song that stayed with him over the years which is a ballad about a pirate [he sings some of it in Czech and reads his translation in Hebrew]; the music in evenings in the ghetto beginning at the end of 1942 to 1943 and which was dedicated to performances and musical entertainment, including cabaret evenings; and being sent to Auschwitz in the fall of 1944, when he was 16 years old.