This month’s blog post tells quite a different story to the others. It focuses on the Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz, which was founded and disbanded during WWII. This orchestra is a clear exception to other women’s orchestras but I still wanted to mention such an interesting story.
Auschwitz was established by Nazi Germany in Poland in 1940 as a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps. Over 1.5 million Polish and Jewish citizens died there, with it becoming the largest of the extermination centres where the "Endlösung der Judenfrage" (the final solution to the Jewish question - the Nazi plan to murder European Jews) was carried out.
While prisoners were there, they were ordered to play music and sing, thus leading to the formation of orchestras. The women’s orchestra started in 1943, following the men’s camp which already had one. The orchestra featured all kinds of instruments and performed a repertoire of over 200 pieces, mainly march music to accompany forced labour and background music for the prisoner’s hospital.
This situation was no different to other areas of society in that women were seen as radically out of place being in positions of power. However, the orchestra’s conductor, Alma Rose, did not let this deter her. While creating a structure for the orchestra as similar as possible to “normal” orchestras, she also campaigned and slowly obtained better living conditions for members of the orchestra. She argued that “in order to produce good music, it is vital that the orchestra members work well with one another” and that “musical success occurs most frequently of the musicians are able to focus on communication and cooperation, instead of merely technique and competition”. As such, musicians of the orchestra were seen as more valuable and more than just numbers.
This was not the only way the orchestra helped its members. Despite being forced to play under difficult circumstances, making music allowed them to hold on to remnants of independence and freedom. It also gave them another kind of reality and release, removing them mentally and emotionally from Auschwitz.
Therefore, though formed under very different circumstances to other women’s orchestras of the time, the Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz provides a very real example of how women’s orchestras can provide the highest quality music while creating a culture of communication and cooperation which allows women musicians to thrive, or in this case, survive.
If you’re enjoying these blogs please feel free to get in touch to ask more about women’s orchestras or request my full dissertation to read.
References:
Auschwitz-Birkenau (no date). History. Available at: https://www.auschwitz.org/en/history/kl-auschwitz-birkenau/ (Accessed: 12th January 2024).
Knapp, Gabriele (1996). ‘Music as a Means of Survival: The Women’s Orchestra in Auschwitz’, YUMPU. Available at: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/3767352/gabriele-knapp-music-as-a-means-of-survival-feministische-studien (Accessed: 12th July 2023).
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