APSU Concert to Examine Musical Influence of the Holocaust

Clarksville, TN – In the early 1940s, during World War II, many of Europe’s most prominent Jewish musicians boarded trains destined for the Terezin concentration camp in Czechoslovakia.

German propaganda described the city’s small fortress as a camp with a “rich cultural life,” but when the new inmates arrived, hope quickly faded. Their beloved instruments were replaced by workers’ tools, and they toiled endlessly each day as slave laborers for Hitler’s Third Reich.

But for a few minutes one morning in 1943, all that changed. Hundreds of Jewish prisoners gathered that day inside the camp and started singing Giuseppe Verdi’s “Requiem” – a powerful, somber piece of music. They’d rehearsed for weeks before hand, memorizing the complex work without the help of books or sheet music. [Read more]