“Deliver Me, O Lord, from Eternal Death on that Fearful Day…”

Rafael Schächter, a conductor, pianist and répétiteur (vocal coach), was born in Romania (27 May 1905), and was sent to Terezín on 30 November 1941, as part of the Aufbaukommando (construction detail) assigned to prepare the ghetto for thousands more Jews. He was a pillar of the musical community in Terezín, and started organizing public sing-alongs very early in his imprisonment. Later he founded and served as conductor in several choirs, played piano accompaniment for singers and musicians in recitals, initiated concerts and operas and conducted those as well. Some of the operas he conducted were Smetana's Prodaná nevěsta (The Bartered Bride) and Hubička (The Kiss), Mozart's Bastien und Bastienne, Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) and Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) and Bizet's Carmen (Karas 1985, pp. 10–11, 19–20, 149). On 16 October 1944, Schächter was sent to Auschwitz with almost the entire string orchestra of Terezín, choir members and many other musicians. According to his niece Katja Manor (interviewed on 2 September 2018), Schächter was transported from Auschwitz to the Groß-Rosen forced labor camp and its subcamps Flossenbürg and Kirchham. We have no information about the circumstances and date of his death, nor do we know whether he died in one of the camps or in a death march.

Kurt Singer (1885–1944), a neurologist by profession, was an active participant in the cultural life of the ghetto. He was extremely knowledgeable in music, and would give public talks on the subject in the ghetto. Between 1927 and 1931 he served as director (Intendant) of the municipal opera house in Berlin (Städtische Oper Berlin). In 1933 he helped found the Berlin Jüdischer Kulturbund (Jewish Culture League), an organization which allowed Jewish artists to continue working within their various disciplines after being barred from the public sphere, following the Nazi rise to power, and then headed the organization from 1933 to 1938. Lily Hirsch (2000, pp. 107–130) shows how the directors of the Jüdischer Kulturbund made a point of choosing compositions which inspired identification and national pride in Jewish audiences. It is unsurprising, then, that Handel's oratories or Verdi's Nabucco were favorite pieces. Singer pushed for a similar repertoire in Terezín, aiming to select Jewish-related music.

A brief review of some of Verdi's operas attests to the deep interest he took in political and social issues, as well as in the nature of Man, themes that directed his choice of libretti. His operas I Lombardi alla prima crociata (The Lombards on the First Crusade), Attila, La battaglia di Legnano (The Battle of Legnano), and of course – Nabucco, dealt with liberation from foreign powers. His interest in government and leadership, and in the influence of power on Man, is displayed in many of his operas, among them Ernani, Macbeth, and Don Carlos (the latter dealing particularly with the deep tensions between Papacy and State). The main theme in Verdi's operas after the failed rebellion of 1848 was the suffering of Man and his futile efforts to change his own fate. In the operas Rigoletto, La Traviata and Il Trovatore, Verdi focuses on the figure of the afflicted, and in addition describes interclass tensions and conveys unflattering portraits of men of influence. His protagonists are usually hapless people from the margins of society, battling their fates and failing. Verdi's choice of protagonists illustrates his social interests and his empathy towards the unfortunate, as well as the significance he saw in such exalted values as justice, loyalty, sacrifice and resignation, or fighting for those even under long odds.

Interestingly, music therapy as an independent discipline first emerged during World War II. Initial experiments in the field involved musicians who played concerts or set up choirs and bands in American psychiatric hospitals where wounded soldiers were hospitalized. Recognizing music's power as a therapeutic device, and the need for professional knowledge about it, led to the opening of the first academic program in the discipline – at the University of Kansas (1946) (Amir 1999, p.16).

LaCapra tackles the issues that arise in the context of writing the history of radically traumatic experiences (“limit events”) (LaCapra 2001, pp. 91–95).

See Avraham Frankel (2002); and also Israel Yuval (2004).

In music theory, this refers to multiple melodic voices moving simultaneously within a composition.

I.e., all voices performing together.

Similar imagery can be found in the Book of Revelation – the final book of the New Testament. The book depicts the events of the End of Days, which will come, according to Christian belief, before Jesus Christ returns to the world to sit in judgement of all who are living or dead.

The Terezín Requiem, Josef Bor's novel from 1963, was inspired by historical events, but embellished with many fictional details. It is one of many literary works about the Holocaust which set the historical facts against a fictional framework. Using actual events and historical characters, Bor took the poetic license to adapt and elaborate, and probably wrote his own beliefs into words that his characters may or may not have said. Regardless, I thought fit to use the novel as a kind of testimony about the performance of Verdi's Requiem in the Terezín ghetto.