- --at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.
- And I'm privileged to have an informal conversation
- with Professor Michael Flack, who was Michael
- Floch in Czechoslovakia.
- Could we start and just give me the parameters, when
- you were born, where you were born,
- and some things about the location?
- Well, yes.
- I'm kind of pursued in the world by the fact
- that by chance, I was born in Lwow.
- But that was only because I was born three, four weeks before I
- was supposed to be born.
- My mother was there.
- And so any time this is listed, people
- think I was a Russian or a Ukrainian, you know, something.
- I was born a Czech, anyhow.
- And I was born on September 12, 1920,
- which is a little while ago.
- And I grew up basically in the Czech Republic
- until World War II.
- And then, of course, in camps, about which we are going to
- talk.
- And after that, I spent one year in the Republic.
- And then I left for the United States,
- where I have been since 1946.
- Mhm.
- What was your general education?
- And did that include some musical background as well?
- Well, yes, but not because I wanted
- to be a professional musician.
- You see, this was a kind of a wonderful bourgeois family.
- I played the violin.
- My second sister played the piano.
- My third sister was a dancer.
- And the little one was an opera singer as young.
- And we did that because it was part of growing up.
- But now specifically about me, apart from my other things,
- I was a--
- I played the violin fairly well, not greatly.
- I was a member of the Ostrava Symphony Orchestra.
- I was a member of the Brno Symphony Orchestra.
- And I gave, with my sister, a few little concert.
- No great competence, but it was an important element
- from the beginning in my growing up,
- music, literature, bourgeois in the best sense of the word.
- Mhm.
- And I took my violin along to Terezin,
- where I played in the orchestra.
- Unfortunately, when we were transported away,
- my violin was taken away.
- And it's not only an objective loss,
- but it's a great loss because it was a 1647 Italian violin.
- Oh, my goodness.
- When did you actually go to Terezin?
- Yes, I went to Terezin on the 14th--
- on the 14th of December 1941, rather early.
- And I was there till September 1944, so three years.
- Then I was transported away to Auschwitz, where blissfully I
- was not too long because it was a horrible experience.
- And then to a sister camp of Buchenwald,
- which was called Meuselwitz, where we
- worked in a munitions factory.
- And I was there till the--
- well, towards the end of the war, where I--
- we were on this death march away from there
- because the Russians were coming near.
- And I escaped from that.
- And I returned to the old country with the American army.
- And I became a liaison between the American army
- and the Soviet army for a number of months, also
- a member of the national committee.
- I returned to Prague in September 1945.
- Did you continue your education after-- you
- would have been 24 when you came back
- to Prague, higher education?
- Well, I had a lot of education.
- I started the university a little bit before.
- I had about 1 and 1/2 years of law studies.
- And after I came back, I was an officer
- in the Ministry of Information in charge
- of cultural relations between the United
- States and the Czech Republic.
- It wasn't terribly much interest anymore and not yet, or no more
- in cultural relations.
- We had a communist minister.
- And so while I had hoped that I would
- be doing very significant work, I
- was doing such foolish things like when Theodore Dreiser
- died, I was asked to write the text of the telegram which
- the president of the republic would send to the United States
- that we are sorry that he died.
- Well, I was semi-mature and said hell bells, after all that
- you lived through, are you going to be a official and an older
- official and a still older official and an old official
- and a dead official?
- And that was not my perspective in life.
- So I accepted an offer from the United States and came here.
- And did you then continue advance--
- Well, oh, yes.
- I have my BA in sociology, my MA in anthropology from the State
- University of Iowa, and my MALD in international law
- and my doctorate from Harvard and Tufts
- at the Fletcher School of Diplomacy,
- which is the elite school of this country.
- And my fellow students were Moynihan and Kissinger,
- and these kind of characters.
- So I am very privileged to have had an outstanding education.
- And I have received much and I have given much.
- Mhm.
- Before you came to Terezin, you came from Brno?
- I was in Prague.
- You were already in Prague.
- My family was.
- I was already in Prague.
- Already in Prague.
- Yes, I was actually teaching at the Institute
- of Modern Languages, formerly the English Institute.
- I am one of the few Jews in the world
- who has a diploma from the German university as a person
- highly qualified in German literature
- and German language, [GERMAN].
- Aha.
- I see.
- So I have two of these diplomas from that period of time.
- Now up until the time of that December 14
- transport to Terezin, were you in any way active or passively
- involved in what became the clandestine Jewish cultural
- activity at the time of the [CROSS TALK]??
- Well, yes.
- I was a teacher.
- I have a certificate in pedagogy.
- And there were these informal schools or classes
- Yes, I taught in that, in a number of them.
- And it was an apartment, and so on, it was not a formal school.
- Yes, I was in that.
- But it was obviously a considerable tightening of what
- one could participate in or do.
- But I was, up to the period when I was transported away, active
- in contacts, in teaching Jewish kids,
- and whatever small cultural events we were able to do,
- but formally, you know.
- Were there any of those, by now rather
- well-known, private musical performances?
- Were very few, a very few that I knew of.
- And you see, we didn't teach two hours a day.
- We thought we thought really six, eight hours a day,
- and we lived pretty far away.
- So not terribly much, insofar as I remember.
- But obviously, quite a few, which
- one doesn't remember because one doesn't attribute to it
- such great importance.
- We did what we could without there being
- a comprehensive program.
- It was only these classes that were comprehensive.
- And they were very bright kids.
- And I remember some.
- And some have written that they remember me, which is amazing.
- Were you personally acquainted with the Klein family,
- either with Eliska or Gideon?
- Well, my Gideon and Otto Klein were my closest friends.
- My heavens, yes.
- You see, we were a group of about,
- oh, I don't know, eight or 10 people,
- very close generationally, and very close in outlook
- and in orientation.
- I have the famous poem on Gideon Klein
- is mine, even though it is published in this silly book.
- I have four poems in this book about the butterflies, which
- are all published as anonymous and so on.
- And they are supposed to be different, but yes.
- And the famous poem about the concert,
- which is dedicated to Gideon, is really mine,
- although I should say--
- well, let me go a little bit further, which you do not know.
- Let's talk about music.
- Let's talk about the piano.
- I discovered the piano.
- This famous legless piano?
- There was no imported piano for Jewish concerts.
- Otto Klein and I were roaming around
- in some of the old buildings, which
- were obviously now evacuated.
- And somebody left there this miserable piano,
- although it wasn't--
- it had a good sound.
- And I and he discovered that piano.
- And then we had some desires of his--
- because somebody fixed it a little bit
- to have some concert.
- And my famous poem actually was written under the title
- "Appassionata" because it was a woman, Mrs. Sommer, who played.
- Alice Herz-Sommer.
- Alice Herz-Sommer.
- And I was so touched by it that I wrote this rather powerful
- poem dedicated to her.
- Three weeks thereafter, Gideon played.
- And I was touched even more.
- So I changed the title from "Appassionata"
- to "Concert on the--
- in a Garrett of an Old School" and dedicated it
- to Gideon Klein--
- Gideon-- yeah, Gideon Klein.
- And it is here.
- You know this book, of course.
- I have this book, of course.
- Well, it's published here.
- Eliska Klein, who-- and I knew all these people, obviously,
- although, not very intensively because I was the only man.
- I was a kind of a young father of these kids.
- I had kids from four to nine years of age.
- Many of them were orphans.
- And my fellow director was a strange,
- but remarkable woman, who ought to be made a saint,
- called Berta Freund.
- And we really worked 14 hours a day.
- And I was the only man.
- So I didn't spend my time living all the cultural events
- that there are because I had something more important to do.
- But I know of some of them, which others don't know.
- And I'm constantly amazed when I meet these people
- from Theresienstadt, that they know things
- which I had no idea about.
- It was a strange place, a small, a lousy little [? sick ?] town,
- with a lot of things happening locally.
- Obviously, there was no newspaper and so on,
- which I didn't know.
- But I know something that others don't.
- Yes, of course.
- I'd like to back up just a moment before you left Prague.
- Did you in your acquaintance with Gideon ever--
- were there any circumstances when you heard him play--
- Before?
- --in Prague?
- No.
- No?
- No.
- You knew him as part of the social circle.
- Well, we knew each other, yeah.
- We knew each other as colleagues and as a group
- of intelligent, bright rebels and so on.
- But his musical potential and performance, I
- knew from there, as well as from some others.
- Yes.
- And although he was a generation older, did you spend--
- No, no.
- No, no, no.
- I mean now Viktor Ullmann was--
- Oh, excuse me.
- --a generation older.
- Did you have any acquaintance in Prague?
- I knew of him.
- No, no, no.
- No, no, no.
- What do you remember of the notification that came
- that you had to go to TerezÃn?
- Well, you get a letter that on a particular date
- and a particular place, you're supposed to be there.
- And you have I don't know how many pounds that you can carry.
- And you better be there.
- And that's it.
- Yes.
- Now, you mentioned that you took your violin.
- Was that a permitted object?
- There was nothing said about it.
- Nothing said about it?
- Yeah.
- It was not prohibited, it was not permitted.
- And it was obviously tolerated inside TerezÃn,
- nothing said about that.
- Otherwise, I would have smartly given it
- to some kind of a friend.
- To keep for me until I hopefully return.
- Now, what sort of activities were you--
- general activities, or at least educational activities--
- what did you do with in TerezÃn?
- In TerezÃn?
- Well, what activities?
- Well, first of all, I told you, I
- was a member of the orchestra.
- And even here, on one of the photographs--
- I think, here they are--
- that's me.
- Ah, this is you.
- OK.
- That's me.
- Yeah.
- And these are colleagues.
- And I think this is, of course, just a section
- from the propaganda film.
- And I believe that they're going to let it just--
- who was the leader is sitting here to the corner.
- And this is you.
- And this is me.
- Well, so I played in this thing.
- Secondly, I was active in unusual ways.
- Maybe you do not know that I wrote the first "Esther" play,
- which--
- and the kids played it.
- I was able to find, in the remainders
- of the city and the records, six pages of my play.
- And listen, I am a very, very severe critic of everything.
- I am amazed how good it is.
- It's a really powerful thing.
- And by the way, if you want to know more about that,
- you don't know Czech, but you can easily find-- you know,
- obviously, Mr. Kuna.
- Milan Kuna, of course.
- Yeah.
- Well, Milan Kuna wrote an article in this number, 394.
- Maybe you want to make some photocopy.
- We will.
- On the Karel Reiner's music to "Esther--" this is not my text.
- My text had no music.
- But my text was really, as I say in retrospect,
- an amazing, amazing poetic drama.
- We played that.
- It was the first play that was performed, I think in TerezÃn.
- Yes, definitely.
- Actually, I know about "Esther."
- And I know that "Esther" was--
- There were several "Esthers."
- Well, there is a lady, Zdenka Fantlová, and now
- Zdenka Erlich in London, who was Vashti
- in one of those "Esthers."
- I don't know if it was yours or the first one.
- Well, I don't know the name.
- Her name was at that time Kachlová?
- Kachlová.
- That does not register.
- Zdenka Kachlová.
- Zdenka, yes.
- That doesn't register.
- But in any case, I'm just saying that I'm admiring ex post
- facto how beautifully I wrote.
- And I know it was a successful thing.
- But unfortunately, only six pages--
- so you'll have to read it.
- So I did this kind of thing.
- And I was, of course, associating with a number
- of remarkable people.
- There was a Kamila Rosenbaumová, a relatively young woman,
- a remarkable actress.
- And so really, a lot of things that happened in the art field
- really were chewed over informally in advance.
- And they kind of grew up from congenial people
- talking with each other about it.
- Now, whether it was under this name or that name,
- it's so unimportant.
- Do you remember, what was your first musical participation,
- or hearing, or anything in that winter of '41-'42?
- No, I do not.
- I do not.
- What is your first musical memory?
- Well, really, I don't have a-- well, of course,
- I practiced my violin always at 6 o'clock in the morning
- before we started work.
- I do not have a first one.
- I don't remember when we had our first rehearsal
- and then the play because that was just part of one
- of the sides of my life, and a certainly subordinated thing
- because, as I said, we really worked 14 days--
- 14 hours a day.
- New groups of people were coming.
- The kids were ill.
- We were not supposed to teach.
- But I had always somebody downstairs
- at the door watching whether an SS
- man came to try to teach them.
- We tried to be mother and father.
- I had about, oh, I don't know, maybe 18 young women
- who were my--
- we called them [NON-ENGLISH],, no good English name for it.
- We had a full-time job.
- A number of them were orphans.
- Now, was this in the Menschen-Jugendheim,
- where you had--
- Well, Jugendheim, of course, were all of them.
- Mine was L318, which was a rather interesting old building
- on the corner.
- And I had a kind of a funny contemporary experience.
- I was trying to talk with the famous Mr.
- Munk, who was the head of--
- and he was trying to persuade me that such a place didn't exist.
- I said, god damn it, I lived there for years
- and so did others.
- Well, it cannot be in this place.
- Well, anyhow, L318, it was a children's home full-time,
- not as a materials of TerezÃn, say,
- that it was a kindergarten.
- That's nonsense.
- We were full-time, day and night, kids from Germany,
- from Czech Republic, and so on.
- And one of my prized possessions, really,
- in the sad sense is I had two orphan--
- not two orphans, two kids, German kids.
- The mother lived in Prague with a German woman.
- And she had, obviously, a Jewish husband.
- And because they were mixed, they were sent to my place--
- I mean, to TerezÃn and came to me.
- One was four and one was five.
- And this tragic German woman wrote them
- an open postcard, which is really
- a measure of her exasperation.
- She says, how are you little Dorothy?
- How are you?
- And so on.
- And I'm sending you all the time packages.
- And I sent you a little wagon.
- I'm sure you'll love it and so on.
- She says, what a disaster, what a tragedy,
- what a shame that I am a German.
- How much would I like to be a Jewish.
- That would be the best thing for me.
- Dear sisters, would you kindly write to me about them,
- and so on, and so on.
- It's just a tear.
- And I'm trying to--
- I understand the two kids survived.
- But I'm trying to find out where they are.
- And so far, I haven't been successful because I would like
- to give them the mother's--
- I don't know whether the mother lives.
- So this is, as I tried to say to you, sir,
- I was very much involved in the cultural life.
- But my first thing was I had responsibility.
- And I had the inner pride to, in this miserable place,
- do something constructive, and life-preserving,
- and life-enhancing.
- Yes, well, this is marvelous what your contribution was.
- I apologize.
- No, no, no.
- We go along for these sort of really detective questions.
- No, sure.
- No, you--
- But still, it always will--
- --have a particular interest.
- --yes, of course.
- Please, this one, I think you should read.
- Yes.
- It may be that I have a copy of it.
- This is a Reiner.
- But anyhow, just read.
- I will write it.
- It's March '94, Hudebnà Veda, which
- means a musical, music science.
- Yes.
- When I look at it, I will actually--
- I might have it.
- So we could maybe divide up your musical activities,
- even if they were, let's say, extracurricular
- to your main work.
- You did practicing of your instrument.
- Oh, obviously, all myself.
- Yes, of course.
- If we then go up the scale in numbers of activities,
- did you play chamber music at any time?
- No, I did not.
- I did not.
- I did not have time for that.
- Now, jumping to 1943, which is when Karel--
- But I did know some of the people,
- like Frohlich, who-- and so I knew a number of people.
- We talked about that.
- But I just couldn't free myself, even in the evenings.
- My job was not 8:00 till 4:00.
- Yes, of course.
- How did how did you look upon coping with the stresses that
- were in the camp, the main job to which you were obviously
- so very dedicated, and nevertheless finding some time
- to pursue music, even in the most private sense of just
- practicing, or having a chat with Karl Frohlich
- or whoever, did this create some tension within you
- psychologically, do you think?
- Well, thank you for the question.
- But I will answer surprisingly no.
- No.
- I was utterly engrossed and satisfied in my role
- and in my task.
- The practicing in the morning was not
- preparing myself to be, if I survive, a musician.
- It was part of a feeling, a private half-hour
- with something that I did before,
- and that is important in the present,
- and hopefully, will be important in the future.
- I was feeding myself with normalcy.
- And meeting with these lovely people was just, again,
- a continuation of a kind of normalcy.
- It was terribly important to survive and not
- to either become a shyster and in effort
- to benefit from some small--
- it was part of trying to continue to be normal.
- And so we were talking about everything possible and so
- on, writing things and so on.
- But I did not have the time to participate
- in some formal processes, excepting in the orchestra.
- Now, you have mentioned that you played, of course, in the Pavel
- Haas study for the film.
- I would like to come back to that orchestra.
- But you mentioned, and that's very intriguing--
- Excuse me, which Pavel Haas study?
- Well, this photograph was playing the study
- for strings of Pavel Haas--
- Yeah, well, that was one of these issues.
- --for the propaganda film.
- But before we get to that, I would like to ask you,
- because it's very interesting for me,
- I did not know that Rafi Schachter
- had conducted an orchestra.
- Well, not very often.
- No, he sometimes-- one or two times, I
- remember that he came over.
- And was this an orchestra that he founded?
- No, no.
- No, no, no, it was this.
- It was that--
- It came to that, yes.
- To Ancerl's?
- Because this was the string orchestra
- which Karel Ancerl founded--
- Yes, yes, yes, yes.
- --in '43.
- Very seldom, but I do remember him once.
- Yes.
- Yes.
- And as far as I know and is known,
- there were two programs, a program of Baroque,
- and Rococo, and classical music that was played,
- on which Gideon Klein played the D minor concerto of Bach.
- And then there was a Czech program,
- including this study, written for the orchestra by Haas,
- the Dvorak's "Serenade--"
- Yeah, I played with him.
- ----[INAUDIBLE],, meditation, and chorale.
- Yeah, I played in that.
- Can you share with us something of the rehearsals,
- Karl Ancerl's method of working, how you worked as a group?
- Well, I don't know anything specific
- that differs from my other experiences that I played.
- Obviously, it was much smaller than the orchestra,
- the Brno Orchestra, and so on, was a different personality,
- and so on.
- But it was what professional orchestras usually do.
- A good number of the people who played in it
- were really semi-professionals.
- We weren't trying to establish some kind of a new TerezÃn
- approach.
- It was, I think, maybe the one thing
- that was probably a little bit different
- was that the quality of the instruments
- were so very different.
- I had a superb violin.
- Now, some others were pretty screechy kind of things.
- So the outcome was probably high on intent and enthusiasm,
- but not so great in terms of the concert its own.
- Let me ask, please, if you had any interaction of any kind
- of some other members of the orchestra-- first of all,
- Egon Ledec himself, who was--
- Not much, with him not, strangely enough.
- Not much.
- Not much.
- Or with Pavel Kling?
- Yes, I remember him, not very much.
- I had a lot of contact with Frohlich
- and with some of these people who were here, even though I've
- forgotten some of their names.
- These are-- excuse me, these are all persons
- I was very close with, this whole group here, by chance,
- very close.
- And these were not professional musicians.
- These were, before they came, young lawyers or so on.
- But they were-- again, I remind that the Czech situation
- was very highly assimilated.
- And many of the Prague Jews and other Jews
- really were very, in the best sense
- of the word, bourgeois people.
- They played the music for music's sakes,
- not because of profession.
- And so I belong into that.
- Yes, of course.
- And many of these were those too.
- There was a young man there whose father was rather famous
- and whose parents did not have to come.
- That was Adolf Dauber, who had the salon orchestra.
- And his son Robert was in the ghetto.
- He was a cellist.
- And as far as is known, he played
- the cello in the string quartet which accompanied "Brundibár."
- Were you aware of him?
- My true answer, as of this moment,
- is the name is familiar to me.
- I cannot put a face on him.
- And I do not, at this stage, recall any closer contact
- with him.
- But I know the name.
- And I know that he was.
- I know that I've spoken with Thomas Mandl, who
- was active as a violinist, and he said
- they had wanted to make a trio.
- But things worked out differently.
- And of course, they didn't.
- Oh, no.
- Yes.
- Do you remember, besides the concert
- of the Czech music, the circumstances
- when the actual filming was taken place?
- Not very well.
- I think I probably--
- I don't know, maybe.
- Sometimes, we had some crises and things.
- So I do not remember.
- I know that there was a filming.
- But I do not remember anything specific.
- Probably was tied up in my home
- Yeah.
- If I mention any concerts, I could say, generally,
- did you hear any time a chamber concert, a vocal concert,
- a violin recital?
- Karl Frohlich, for example, of course, gave some recitals.
- Yeah.
- I did not hear him.
- Again, I'm saying that I was kind
- of an involuntary indentured person.
- So I couldn't go to a number of things.
- Some of them, I didn't know.
- I think I do remember one or two concerts of women singing.
- And I do remember, I think, once, a chamber concert.
- My memory is not very good.
- But again, I think, I could participate that much.
- There was a piano quartet concert
- with Gideon Klein and Karl Frohlich,
- and Freddie Mark, and Heinrich--
- That may be.
- --Brahms and Dvorak quartet.
- That may very well be something like this.
- But again, I cannot specifically show it.
- And there was a performance of the Schubert great C
- major quintet with two cellos, in which Ancerl
- played one of the viola parts.
- No, I did not.
- I did not participate in it, and maybe even
- didn't know about it.
- As I said, it's an amazing thing to me,
- very, very solid people tell me about things
- of which I didn't know.
- And I, as a semi-solid person, told them
- about things of which they didn't know.
- It's a strange universe there.
- Yes, of course.
- Piano recital, did you ever hear?
- Oh, I'm sure.
- But I suppose--
- Gideon gave several solo recitals.
- Gideon, so, was the first one that I heard, made this poem,
- [INAUDIBLE] listen.
- Yes.
- Well, we were relatively close, Ofer Klein, Gideon, Kamila,
- myself, and there was Dimmler, and so on,
- about a group of eight, and of course, Rudy Hirsch, and Gonda,
- who was--
- little fellow was the head of that.
- Gonda Redlich?
- Redlich, yeah.
- And I was very much disappointed in his memoir
- because his memoir is basically all the time waiting
- for his love to come.
- Although on one point, he is--
- I told him about this card which I got.
- And he misunderstood.
- But anyhow, he makes a reference there.
- Oh, in his diary, you mean?
- In his diary, yes.
- I'm talking about the diary.
- But he was a good little man.
- He was a thoughtful man and probably
- had a hard time pushing this dimension or other dimensions.
- Because everybody was competing with everybody.
- Well, any goodies that there were.
- Sure, sure.
- Did you hear any cabaret performances?
- I'm sure one, but I can't identify it.
- I'm sure.
- But don't forget that I had this "Esther," which
- was not a cabaret.
- But no, I don't remember this light thing.
- Maybe I wasn't interested.
- I don't know.
- Or did you hear--
- I know the earliest quartet was the so-called Doctors' Quartet.
- One reads about it in Josef Karas' book.
- There was the Theresienstadt string quartet of Frohlich,
- and Freddie Mark, et cetera.
- I remember the name.
- I'm not sure that I heard it.
- But maybe, I have.
- Again, I-- on these kind of things, my memory
- is not very specific.
- Yes.
- And '42, there were concerts in the attic, the same attic,
- I think before there was a piano-- '41, '42.
- Egon Ledec, of course, had his quartet as well.
- I don't remember having been to any Ledec.
- I don't remember.
- I may have been.
- I don't know.
- Any recollections from TerezÃn, in any shape or form,
- of awareness of Ullmann himself, or Hans Krása, or Pavel Haas?
- Krása, yes.
- And by the way, I don't know, do you know, there is a foundation
- Hans Krása?
- Yeah, Hans Krása Initiative.
- No, it's called foundation, nadace.
- Yeah, I know.
- I made contact with them [CROSS TALK]
- That's the orchestra.
- That's a new-- rather, that's a new orchestra.
- Yes, yes, yes.
- OK.
- Yeah, Krása, I met.
- And of course, Pavel Haas, I met.
- Ullmann, I did not meet.
- And I knew of their work and probably
- even talked about them.
- The specifics, I don't have.
- There was a concert of Ullmann's Studio für Neue
- Musik, which was Junge Autoren in Theresienstadt.
- And Gideon Klein had songs which were played.
- And there were two works by Zikmund Schul, Karel Berman.
- Don't know.
- Don't know.
- And Berman, I know personally, knew personally.
- But I don't know about that event.
- At least now, I don't know.
- Yes.
- Gideon, of course, also worked in an educational capacity
- with the young girls and made choral arrangements for them,
- for a girls' choir.
- Yeah, but it was not an official function.
- It was an activity.
- Thank heavens for it.
- But I don't think he had a formal function.
- Anything else that, looking back now, and somehow,
- in the context of our discussion that comes
- to mind musically in particular?
- Not really.
- Not really.
- I suppose, if I read something, something
- would jump into my mind.
- But not really.
- As I say, I've defined myself as a very interested musician,
- but as a person who, essentially,
- had a responsibility and gave it whatever I had.
- And so maybe there were some events
- over which I, A, did not know.
- Because apparently, there was not really
- a very good information system of what's going to happen.
- Some groups did something for themselves.
- And then people tell me that there was.
- And secondly, some things may have happened.
- And I just could not.
- I also had my father living, a blessing, in my home.
- And he wasn't very well.
- So I had to take care of him.
- You did mention, though, that you had a little bit
- of awareness of Hans Krása.
- Anything specific?
- Nothing specific.
- We met sometimes and just chatted, not about music.
- But I knew him.
- Did you happen to hear any "Brundibár" performance?
- I did hear one.
- And of course, after the thing, I heard quite a few.
- And I have some contact here with where my sister was in it.
- My little sister was in it.
- And of course, Ela Weissberger, who is now circulating around
- all the time around the country, trying to tell them
- about the "Brundibár."
- And Adolf Hoffmeister was, after all, my boss in the ministry
- before I left.
- And well, he was a great artist.
- He was also a--
- well, I wanted to say something--
- sometimes very minor.
- And he'd tell me.
- I'd say hello to Mr. Hoffmeister,
- I'd like to do that.
- He says, for you, I am Dr. Hoffmeister.
- And I said, OK, Dr. Hoffmeister.
- It was asinine.
- He was a great artist.
- Yeah.
- But yes, I did attend one.
- Of course, we loved it all, even though it's
- kind of a shilly-shally story.
- But I mean, the mere fact that these kids--
- we won.
- And everybody made a very symbolic statement
- that we will win.
- And so yes, that was very fun thing.
- Were you aware in September of '44
- that the "Kaiser upon Atlantis" was being rehearsed?
- No.
- No.
- That tells you something about the kind of a place it was.
- Sure, sure, sure.
- No, no.
- There was another work, which a woman composed
- in that summer, the last summer, besides this seventh piano
- sonata.
- And that was this large work for narrator
- and either piano, piano as it was performed
- with Rafi Schachter, "Die Weise von Liebe
- und Tod des Conets Christoph Rilke."
- I know about the composition, but that's ex post facto.
- Permit me, how, as a result of your constant,
- and appropriate, and relevant questions,
- to try to maybe give a kind of a not very conventional
- definition of TerezÃn.
- TerezÃn was physically a town.
- And biologically, it was a-- having a lot of people.
- But it was really a collection of smaller groups
- doing their thing.
- Doing their own thing.
- Particularly those who were intellectual or were artistic.
- So that something was done and they didn't tell others.
- They did it for themselves.
- It wasn't a theater.
- It was a self-expression, which contributed to life.
- Does that make sense?
- Yes, of course.
- Of course.
- That is very important to know.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- And groups were for themselves, not trying to exclude.
- But the triumph was that we did something rather
- who the hell is.
- Looking back now, Professor Flack,
- with the perspective of more life experience, and time,
- and reflection, and so on, what would
- be your sort of post facto, down the road
- many years evaluation of this?
- Particularly which I mentioned in my talk
- the other day, that some were conscious of making
- a kind of a spiritual rebellion in some way.
- And others were just grateful to spend
- some time doing music a little bit to forget the surroundings.
- How do you feel after the fact so far down the road?
- Well, I think it's a very good question.
- I'm not sure that these are the only two alternatives
- I think one, you see--
- well, two major kind of, I suppose,
- dimension that one has to make.
- First of all, the Czechs came.
- That was a special kind of a group.
- It was Czech, assimilated, mostly,
- very broadly speaking well-off in the past,
- and very well-educated.
- There was no discrimination against the Jews at that time.
- I mean, you-- on your own, you were asked, are you a Jew,
- or are you French, or are you a Chinese, or whatever it is.
- That was only your thing.
- But it doesn't make a difference.
- So I think the first thing is that since TerezÃn was--
- please go ahead.
- No, that's good.
- Yeah?
- To be systematic, I said, there were
- at least two major periods.
- One is the Czechs came in.
- And this, as it is true in Israel and everywhere
- in the world, the first settlers are the great settlers
- who claim some kind of a great right to be the guys,
- that the others are intruders to be tolerated.
- It's everywhere-- the Mayflower in this country.
- Now, let me parenthetically ask, was
- this a feeling of the Czech Czechs,
- or the German-speaking Czechs, or both of them?
- Well, I think, really, the great majority--
- at least the kind of a core majority was the Czech Czechs.
- Now, we spoke German--
- Yes, of course.
- --maybe even more languages.
- But we did consider ourselves Czechs.
- And it was in a Czech city in Czechoslovakia.
- So essentially, the transition was only
- from my wider freedom in Prague to the confined freedom there.
- And actually, we weren't terribly pushed around so
- that we could, in many circumstances,
- have a feeling of a certain continuity of our lives.
- And it expressed itself in the creative work, particularly
- the younger people.
- So the main subconscious drive was
- keep on living as much as you can
- in the way you lived before, and subconsciously, as you
- are likely to live after that.
- There was no awareness in myself that people are being murdered.
- I didn't know.
- We didn't know.
- Many-- some people didn't know, probably.
- Did you talk about it?
- Did you hypothesize?
- No.
- No.
- No, no.
- That was not part of the-- at least not in the beginning.
- No.
- And then came the Germans.
- And really, I mean, obviously, they were even--
- they were really more selected that we-- we were not selected,
- we were just all sent.
- The Germans were selected.
- They were much more already beginning
- to be the more distinguished ones and so on.
- And they came.
- And they were not very accepted as fellow Jews.
- They were Germans.
- So they created their own cultural life.
- And of course, they had a number of very, very bright people.
- And it is only now the Czechs have
- published-- the Czech Jews have published a number of books.
- It's only now that a third volume of the two major books
- is coming out about the Germans.
- Well, the Czechs have had kind of superiority.
- But obviously, the Germans are poets, and the musicians,
- and so create tremendous things, but not terribly much.
- It wasn't excluding them.
- It wasn't discriminating against them.
- But somehow, as I said, you came from the old country.
- You were still subconsciously expecting to go back.
- You were you.
- And they were they.
- And you were juxtaposed.
- And some friendships occurred, but basically, not very much.
- So they had their cultural life.
- And we had ours.
- And sometimes, you went to hear the other thing, but not very
- much, as I remember that.
- So the important thing is continue your own life
- to the extent possible because it is, hopefully, temporary.
- The shock came when you came to Auschwitz, which they told you
- that it-- my first moment in Auschwitz was when we came
- and I was to the right-hand side.
- We were standing in front of this delousing thing,
- presumably.
- And there was a big hole in front of it.
- And an SS man came and said, I want two people.
- You're going to fight each other until one kills the other.
- And you are going to watch.
- Nobody raised his hand.
- He pulled out two people.
- They had to undress.
- And they had to kill each other.
- One killed the other.
- The first shock was this ain't a place where life goes on here,
- absolute, absolute nothing.
- Everything is going to happen.
- And it was a great shock.
- So that's a very different thing.
- There was a kind of a-- there was no law there.
- But there was a continuation of a kind of a cultural context
- in TerezÃn.
- I think that was a different world.
- How long did you stay in Auschwitz?
- Well, about five months.
- Five months.
- It was terrible, really.
- But again, we kind of held a little bit together.
- And my main thing was I had a feeling, I'm going nuts.
- I'm getting stupid because I was very intellectual man.
- So I was walking around and said, this is a stone.
- This is a house.
- This is-- just speaking English to myself
- to just remember my damn thing.
- And I had a tremendous need for a book, even though.
- And some guy had one of the most stupidest German books
- in the world, the whole history, called Der Schimmelreiter
- from Theodor Storm.
- And I exchanged it for my ration of bread
- because I needed to do something with my mind,
- because my horror was that I'm going stupid,
- and apart from other things that were happening.
- So from-- if I may connect, from the effort
- to lead as much as possible a commensurate
- life to the past in the normal Czech Republic to the effort
- in these extremely threatening circumstances,
- to maintain your sanity and personality, and then,
- of course, to [INAUDIBLE],, which was a different story,
- these were the motivations.
- Or those who speak about us trying to be heroic, maybe
- some people were.
- I didn't see any heroism.
- It was an effort to survive without the bombastic meaning,
- obviously, to continue, to preserve yourself
- for your life.
- And that was it.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Well, this is powerful and very moving things
- that you're saying.
- Yeah.
- Well, I have it on this Shoah thing.
- I said that.
- Yeah.
- Let me be, please, towards the finish still a little pedantic.
- OK.
- Again, I apologize.
- But--
- No, no.
- --just-- and maybe it might trigger some memory.
- There were, of course, courses.
- And did you have, at any point, even just
- on the edge, any awareness of choral activity
- or operatic activity?
- Well, I mentioned that I heard some concerts,
- where there was singing, music, I think mostly women.
- Berman, I heard once.
- But again, he may have done more, and of course,
- a lot after I came back.
- But no.
- And of course, you had, probably,
- a talk with my little sister.
- And the girls had their own little homes, so to say.
- Not a special building, they had-- each room
- had a different thing.
- And they did a lot of things.
- I think that they participated much more.
- Of course, they were also younger.
- They were 14, 15, 13.
- And they are now writing a book together, by the way.
- And it would be interesting.
- They had also the luck of having a extremely good leadership.
- I forget the name of the woman, but that
- was so important to see.
- A number of persons who may have been
- relatively average human beings in their normal life
- before found their great role there
- because it wasn't a question whether you
- work for 4:00 to 6:00, or whether you're getting paid,
- or whether you want to get a high position.
- You fell into a position.
- And you are able and needed to give the most.
- So that is the heroism, the performance of average people
- who found themselves in the role to do something outstanding,
- which was lying in them.
- Or maybe they themselves didn't know they had it.
- This same Zdenka Fantlova Ehrlich put it very nicely.
- She said that many people in their lives
- play on the keyboard of life in that little five-finger
- exercise, and then suddenly, she said,
- you find yourself in such a situation
- you're playing on both extremes of the keyboard.
- Well, you see--
- And if you're lucky to come back, then often
- you go back to the middle.
- Let me say something that just came to my mind.
- Terezin was interesting.
- It didn't have any bureaucracy, not in the personal lives.
- I didn't have to get any permission from anybody,
- accepting that, of course, one day,
- the SS decided that all the leaders of all
- the children's homes are to be immediately discontinued
- and immediately made to do manual labor,
- and the leadership, the [NON-ENGLISH]..
- Why these are-- there has never been any complaints about them.
- That is in order.
- And three weeks afterwards, we were sent away.
- I suppose they had some kind of a--
- I don't know what they had.
- So we had the capacity to really create what we wanted.
- There were no rules.
- And that is, of course--
- in confined circumstances, you start flourishing.
- Yes, of course, and that was a great irony.
- You had the responsibility, but you had a responsibility
- to define it.
- And that probably is true of artists.
- Maybe Gideon played better there than he played afterwards
- in Prague because he was expressing something that--
- I don't know, subconsciously-- it's a privilege that I can.
- In Prague, it's not a privilege.
- It's a concert.
- And so every one of us--
- and the plenty of the materials that you can find on everything
- is the remark how much really was
- done but also of the very unusual composition
- of that whole camp, of really--
- my father-- my family survived for one other silly thing.
- The idiotic Germans had still a--
- or some group had still some kind
- of a feeling of Prussian nobility.
- Jews that were soldiers in the German army or Austrian army
- during World War II are not to be sent to Auschwitz
- and destroyed.
- They can continue living and will die.
- My father had lost his right arm in Verdun, near Verdun.
- So that helped my mother, and my father, and my youngest sister
- to survive.
- And as it regards us, you probably
- have heard it as the others.
- We were also scheduled to be eliminated.
- But us, we mostly--
- Gideon and others insofar as they did survive,
- survived because the Germans needed workers.
- They had occupied the whole of Europe.
- They didn't have enough people.
- The Russians were beating them over the heads.
- They had to have most of the people away.
- So the Jews were ready workers in the munitions and others.
- Therefore, we survived because, after the war,
- it was time enough to kill us.
- They simply couldn't afford it.
- They needed us as workers.
- That is not heroic, but that's true.
- Most people don't talk about it in practical terms,
- but that also led to a few brutalities because,
- let's say, in Meuselwitz, we were about 1,500, not just
- Jews, Poles, God knows, everything.
- Some of them didn't behave very nicely.
- But the thing is, you had 1,500 people,
- and there were about 30 Germans, 30 officers.
- Therefore they had to be very careful when something happened
- to immediately smash on you because otherwise--
- and we had a Russian fellow, [PERSONAL NAME],,
- who twice tried to escape.
- And the second time, they caught him again, and the bound him
- to a kind of a table.
- And they started beating him, and we
- had to count aloud 713 smashes until he was dead.
- They looked-- again, from their perspective,
- if I don't teach these bastards that nobody's
- going to run away, we can't control it.
- It's a double tragedy in some--
- But still, 30 officers, even with their weapons,
- nevertheless so vastly outnumbered--
- was there any collective--
- Well--
- --effort along the way to overcome them?
- No.
- No.
- No there's a lot of, I am afraid, imagination.
- No, we were-- where do you run away?
- This was in the middle of nothing.
- You didn't know about what the Poles are going to do.
- Some of them were Poles.
- We knew that they're not going to do very much, so on.
- The most important thing that fed us and kept us mentally
- alive were all kinds of rumors-- apparently,
- maybe some of the Polish or Czech police
- were telling us what the radio was saying,
- and the fact that we heard that the war is going badly
- and that the Russians are coming close-- that kept us alive.
- But I don't know.
- A few people tried to run away, but any kind
- of a big talk, at least from what I have seen,
- about big resistance, the resistance movement and so on--
- no.
- You were lucky that you still lived.
- Don't risk it, man.
- Yes, of course.
- Who's waiting for you?
- Yes.
- So it's like--
- But that's-- I am sure that's the majority position.
- It wasn't cowardice.
- It was great realism because your life was,
- shall I have tomorrow food?
- That's the question.
- And under what circumstances?
- I get this lousy water and food here.
- Anyhow, that's how I see it.
- Now, let me see, is there anything here that I can--
- Well--
- --tell you here-- you know this.
- You know--
- It would be nice to have--
- Did you have any contact with this woman, [PERSONAL NAME]??
- No.
- Well, I think she is talking here
- about things which are possibly of interest to you.
- For example, she is talking about Bernard Kaff.
- Now, they say he was a great pianist.
- Maybe so.
- My mother, when I left Terezin, I gave my poetry and other
- poetry of other children-- by the way, that's important--
- to her because they were staying.
- And my mother was a wonderful, wonderful woman,
- and of course she loved me as a only child.
- And she wanted to give to me all the things that she,
- as a woman, couldn't do.
- And so she was kind of correcting or writing down
- little things on my poems.
- And so, for example, on the poem on-- which
- later became the poem on Gideon Klein.
- Somehow, she wrote "Bernard Kaff,
- and I just got a letter from Terezin
- saying, "I understand that the poem that is being published
- is really written for Bernard Kaff,
- I did not know Bernard Kaff.
- The name is, to me, completely unknown.
- But she is writing about Bernard Kaff,
- so if you are interested in tracing
- some type of musical report-- by the way,
- some of the things that Karas has written are not correct,
- but that's the first one.
- She might be both a book requiem to ourselves.
- You might find some interesting material.
- Yes, I will look into that.
- I will look into that.
- We'll look through these things.
- And one thing that I would like afterwards
- is maybe just to identify who you
- can by name in that orchestra--
- Oh, that will be--
- --withing the orchestra.
- That will now be very hard.
- If you had a list, it would spring into my mind.
- I suppose.
- But I am 50 years--
- I have-- these are all very well-known faces to me.
- Yeah.
- Mind you, I know that Pavel Kling.
- Is playing here in the violas.
- Oh, I'm sure, yeah.
- And now I know that this is you.
- Yes, that is me, definitely.
- And in the-- I have been in contact and must renew it,
- two brothers sang in the Karl Fischer choir when they were
- filmed during the finale--
- beginning of the finale of Elias of Mendelssohn.
- One is in Minneapolis.
- And of course, the other people that I know
- were Edith Kraus, and Karel Berman,
- who were soloists, and so on.
- Well, there was great quality there, great quality.
- Yes, yes.
- What-- maybe a final impression.
- After all, last week, you did hear both from my examples
- and the pieces that we performed,
- my wife and I. What is your feeling of this music now?
- Was there any that you knew by chance, or was it all--
- I realize that a good portion of the chamber music
- has been performed here.
- No, I did not-- well, let me put it this way.
- It's hard enough to remember some memorable statements
- that friends make to each other.
- It's much harder to remember some scenes of music.
- No, I did not.
- Although I have a hard time distinguishing between what
- I have heard here in the rich musical life presented
- by this institution and what I may have heard before.
- Consciously, I cannot say that I remember any of this music,
- having heard it there, and I'm afraid a great number of others
- would tell you the same.
- Karel Berman gave, of course, a solo recital in April of '44.
- Yes.
- Well, and afterwards, I heard him in Brno several times.
- Yes, yes.
- He just-- he died not long ago.
- Yeah.
- And he did, of course, the Chinese songs [INAUDIBLE],,
- which were composed, Beethoven, and Dvorak.
- Again, in some way, you're asking,
- do you remember having read a program?
- There were no programs.
- Yes, of course.
- At least I don't remember any programs.
- They'd play, and they would announce it.
- So if you don't have that, it's called Chinese--
- you're interested in what you hear
- at the moment for the moment.
- We lived a life for the moment.
- Yes.
- Last specific question-- in early '42,
- there were some programs in which the accordion played
- with the violin.
- Accordion?
- Yes.
- And one presumes-- one knows that the recital on which Karel
- Frohlich played the Kreutzer Sonata was with Wolfgang Wolfi
- Lederer, who was a pianist but who played it with
- the accordion on that occasion and through the--
- [PERSONAL NAME] or reverse told me--
- she lives in Zurich now-- that she sat in the audience
- with Gideon Klein.
- And he said, look what they're doing to the Kreutzer,
- playing--
- there was no piano, so he played on an accordion.
- And I've always been looking if anyone
- heard a performance of this work that we have,
- which you did not hear, by Hugo Leventhal.
- I don't think you would have known him.
- He was an older man.
- No.
- Well, it's not important whether I knew him.
- I don't remember even the name in connection
- with some composition.
- But there is-- if you are in Switzerland,
- which you probably will, and have been,
- and so on, there is a gal there who was in one of my classes
- when I-- before I--
- I mean in the Jewish classes--
- who is a medical person.
- And she then came to Theresienstadt,
- and she participated in a number of things.
- Her name is Bendova.
- I can give you her address.
- Oh, I would like that.
- It might be interesting to hear her.
- She is a younger generation, but she
- may have been involved in many more things
- than I was able to do.
- So that's how it is.
- Could we end, Professor Flack, with one thing?
- Maybe just for the record, would you
- like to choose and read maybe for this interview
- one of your poems?
- Well, but they're Czech.
- That's OK.
- Oh, really?
- Yes.
- Well, actually, I have--
- Maybe the concert poem.
- Oh, I'd be very happy.
- Well, actually, look, I have an English translation of it.
- No, I have it.
- I would--
- Oh, you have it.
- Obviously, I would like you to read it in Czech.
- Well, of course, Czech is a--
- strangely enough, most people kind of make fun of it.
- It's a kind of a non-musical language
- because it has a number of words which have no vowel.
- But actually, it's not true.
- It can be.
- I just had a--
- just a little thing for you.
- I had a program, Voice of America broadcast,
- a beautiful program of my poems.
- And yesterday, the embassy, the Czech embassy here, called me,
- and they want me to read here in March.
- And I'll have something in New York.
- Well, but I will be very glad to read.
- The first poem is--
- these are all poems written there.
- Actually, there are two here which all relates
- to-- and by the way, this one is--
- I'll just briefly tell you that.
- This is called "The Dead Pianist," and it says--
- about the pianist and so on, that only the fingers
- will stick out and so on.
- And it's a beautiful day, but the dead one goes and plays
- with his black finger, C, D, G, A, C.
- And then it goes on, and then again, at the end,
- he comes back and plays with his yellow finger, E, F, G, A,
- A. It's a beautiful poem.
- Yes.
- Would you read it in Czech?
- Just say the page.
- Sure, yeah.
- It's page 22.
- It's a beautiful poem.
- [SPEAKING CZECH]
- It's a beautiful boy.
- I'm sorry that it's Czech.
- And the other one is, of course, [INAUDIBLE] Gideon Klein.
- And as I say, I devoted it to him after-- originally,
- it was for [PERSONAL NAME].
- Did she know that?
- No, no.
- It was at that time Appassionata.
- She played the Appassionata.
- Do you recall what Gideon played?
- No.
- No.
- No.
- We know his repertoire.
- But it was not Appassionata.
- But he played it so well-- or the circumstance
- was so that I said, damn it, it touches me so much,
- so I'm going to change this poem for him.
- [SPEAKING CZECH],, "Concert in the Garrett of an Old School."
- Originally, it was called Appassionata.
- And the poem goes like this.
- [SPEAKING CZECH]
- Let me, rather, tell you what it says because--
- I do know it.
- Oh, you do?
- I do know it, sure.
- [SPEAKING CZECH]
- The rest of the lines are, "Bent down over your manner of--
- and you are like Beethoven.
- Your forehead was heavy like the sky before the rain."
- It's a good poem.
- Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
- Really good thing.
- Well--
- OK, my sir.
- I'm--
- Let me read you one thing that has nothing to do,
- but I received a letter from the wife of Arnost Lustig.
- One second.
- Let me just check.
- We're fine.
- Lustig was in Terezin.
- Yeah, I know.
- But makes himself here as a Mr. Terezin.
- And of course he's written a lot of things, but--
- well, anyhow, she was a poet, and she
- worked in the same magazine.
- I got a second national prize for my poetry.
- I tried to--
- I sent her a book.
- She says, and Doctor, thank you so much for the book,
- for the dedication, which, of course, doesn't belong to me.
- Mainly, Arnost, her husband, is very sensitive about my opening
- any of his mail, but I respect it, and he respects that, too.
- So I haven't opened it for quite a while, but I apologize.
- Today, at night, I couldn't resist, so I opened the book,
- and read it, and I told him, and so on.
- You found words express the inexpressible.
- I cannot do that, although she has a very good book.
- Therefore, I don't know how I could or could
- manage to say what you so brilliantly say.
- Thank you, thank you.
- It has to be said, I know, even if it
- is very painful and something that will not really
- stop haunting us.
- No, my experience that time heals has not come true.
- What once was the truth and what human beings once believed
- has completely evaporated and has turned against them.
- What should people understand each other by whatever language
- they speak when even people of the same blood
- do not understand each other, when even children
- on a playground do not understand each other
- and can hurt each other because of some silly plaything
- or revenge themselves because somebody just pushed them?
- I do not believe in no war.
- I do not believe in peace.
- I do not believe in the human soul and its innocence.
- These are only exceptions.
- It's a beautiful letter.
- Yes, absolutely.
- It's a beautiful-- she was obviously very touched.
- It's a good book.
- It's a good book.
- I would like-- with your permission, I'll photocopy--
- I have, of course, the Czech one,
- but I will photocopy the other one
- that you read and the title page,
- and then when I'm in Prague--
- [INAUDIBLE] which--
- Page 22, the first poem that you read.
- Oh, that poem?
- The first one from the collection.
- Yeah, it's in here.
- I'll photocopy it.
- Then I'll acquire--
- Yeah.
- This is a-- well, it's translated,
- I think, but anyhow, there is an English, and a German,
- and a Polish thing coming out, and maybe a Hebrew.
- I've written to [INAUDIBLE] if there is somebody
- who wants to translate that.
- This is a document.
- I don't need glory.
- I have enough glory.
- Sure, sure, sure.
- But I think this poem, by the way,
- would be very lovely to translate.
- No, I would like that, and I would like to have--
- This is--
- --it with the transcript of--
- --22.
- --this interview.
- Yes.
- So I will photo--
- This is 22.
- Yeah, this-- you can.
- What would you like me to do?
- I can just ask them if we can make a few photocopies--
- Sure, sure, sure.
- --before I leave, and when I'm in Prague,
- I will get the book order and send it to--
- Yeah, my little sister has it.
- Yes.
- She's, of course, in Brno.
- But she comes to Prague.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Well, it was a pleasure to talk with you.
- Well, I thank you-- thank you very, very much.
- You are very welcome.
- And I hope that we will have some continuing contact.
- Well I would like to very much.
- My project could mean some return trips here, and--
- I will welcome you in Washington.
- And if you come to Israel--
- Well, I will one day.
- I will--
- --it'd be very nice to see you there.
- By the way, to what extent--
- like close cooperation
Overview
- Interviewee
- Michael J. Flack
- Date
-
interview:
1997 September 09
- Geography
-
creation:
Washington (D.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
- Flack, Michael.
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 09:37:27
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn558997
Download & Licensing
- Request Copy
- See Rights and Restrictions
- Terms of Use
- This record is digitized but cannot be downloaded online.
In-Person Research
- Available for Research
- Plan a Research Visit
Contact Us
Also in Professor David Bloch collection
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.
Cigarette case
Object
Oral history interview with Ulrich E. Simon
Oral History
Oral history interview with Alexander Singer
Oral History
Oral history interview with Elsa Deutsch
Oral History
Oral history interview with Pavel Fuchs
Oral History
Oral history interview with Willi Groag
Oral History
Oral history interview with George Hartman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Tomas Lenda
Oral History
Oral history interview with Martin Roman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Margit Silberfeld
Oral History
Oral history interview with Georg Steiner
Oral History
Oral history interview with Max Dauber
Oral History
Oral history interview with Paul Kling
Oral History
Oral history interview with Gertrude Solarova
Oral History
Oral history interview with Avivva Bar-on
Oral History
Oral history interview with Tomas Mandel
Oral History
Oral history interview with Yosef Klein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Shoshana Heyd
Oral History
Oral history interview with Arieh Zemer
Oral History
Oral history interview with Manka Alterova
Oral History
Oral history interview with Tomi Spencer
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ruth Elias
Oral History
Oral history interview with Robert Kolban
Oral History
Oral history interview with Uri Bas and Kobi Luria
Oral History
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.