The roles of music amongst musician Holocaust survivors before,during,and after the Holocaust

Abstract

The aim of this study is to qualitatively examine the roles of music for musician Holocaust survivors during the Holocaust and whether and how it helped them cope with its effects. Seven musician Holocaust survivors aged 73–95 were interviewed. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the transcribed interviews indicated five chronological periods where music had different roles: (1) prior to the Holocaust (e.g., as a means to create identity), (2) the outset of the Holocaust (e.g., as a means to maintain normalcy), (3) during the Holocaust (e.g., as a means of escape), (4) the aftermath of the Holocaust (e.g., as a means to promote rehabilitation) and, (5) present day (e.g., as a means to commemorate the past). A sixth category that had a cross-temporal nature was termed “transitional objects,” defined as musical objects that survivors clung to during and after the Holocaust for consolation. The roles of music in coping with the survivors’ trauma are compared to studies that found similar as well as contrasting results and are discussed in light of the literature regarding uses of music for coping with trauma and in light of the growing knowledge about “health musicking.”

Keywords

coping with trauma Holocaust Holocaust survivors music and health music therapy

The Holocaust is referred to as “the systematic state-sponsored killing of six million Jewish men, women, and children and millions of others by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II” (Holocaust, 2015).¹ The trauma was profound in the sense that it was caused by numerous aspects, including physical elements, such as hunger, thirst, and death; emotional elements, such as fear, terror, inferiority, and hopelessness; and elements of loss of identity, such as the elimination of all personal history, personality and social surroundings, in some cases resulting in a complete loss of faith in humankind.

Within the Holocaust inferno, music continued to exist (Fackler, 2007; Hoch, 2002; Moreno, 1999; Naliwajek-Mazurek, 2013; Prager, 1954; Toltz, 2004). Historians recounted the various musical group activities that were performed despite the bleak and inhumane surroundings (e.g., Flam, 1992; Gilbert, 2005) and also the myriad ways in which the Nazis used and abused music in the camps (Fackler, 2007; Moreno, 1999; Naliwajek-Mazurek, 2013; Toltz, 2004).

The aim of this article is to research the effects of music amongst musician Holocaust survivors during the Holocaust. Previous research studies on music during the Holocaust are primarily historical with a specific emphasis on the public performances and the musical repertoires that were composed and performed during the Holocaust and the ways the Nazis used (and abused) music in the camps. This article focuses on the personal accounts of musician Holocaust survivors, the ones who produced this music. It was our aim to understand the psychological roles of music in their daily struggle for survival and to see if these had any resemblance to uses of music in other instances of coping with trauma other than the Holocaust. The literature review below relates to known research on music during the Holocaust and to literature on music in the context of coping with trauma.

Literature review

In the context of the present study, which focuses on examining whether music was connected to Holocaust survivors’ coping, it is important to note that there is ample research that shows that music can be utilized in distressful states. Music therapists, for instance, use different techniques to help ameliorate post-traumatic symptoms (e.g., Bensimon, Amir, & Wolf, 2008, 2012; Felsenstein, 2014; Loewy & Stewart, 2004; Orth, Doorschodt, & Verburgt, 2004; Vibe & Kira, 2012). There are, in fact, several case studies that directly refer to music therapy with Holocaust survivors and the positive effect that music had on them (e.g., Amir, 2007; Clements-Cortes, 2008). Another, more community oriented program was conducted successfully in a post-war zone to promote resilience through music (Gerber et al., 2014). Yet other studies referred to people who use music in different ways, such as listening to specific types of music to cope with distress (e.g., Ter Bogt, Mulder, Raaijmakers, & Gabhainn, 2011; van den Tol & Edwards, 2013).

In the context of the Holocaust, however, therapeutic uses of music were apparently different. To begin, music therapy did not formally exist yet. Moreover, during the Holocaust, survival conditions did not enable such treatment. If music was to help in this context it would be of a more “self-made,” spontaneous nature in which people produced or consumed music to create some form of “self-therapy.” Studies that focused on music in the Holocaust have indeed shown that during the Holocaust, despite the systematic extermination of the Jews, including Jewish musicians, Jewish music prevailed in almost every place that Jews were detained or deported to. They played, sang, and even composed, performing classical, religious, folklore and cabaret music (Hoch, 2002). However, it is unclear whether music had only positive effects.

On the one hand, there are studies that relate to the numerous productive roles of music in concentration camps. Firstly, from testimonies that were documented, concerts and other musical performances were performed in the ghettoes and camps. In some cases, these concerts strengthened the morale of the detainees and were a source of support in such harsh surroundings (Fackler, 2007; Moreno, 1999). Secondly, the songs themselves were a means of expressing inner feelings and were frequently the inspiration for survival (Flam, 1992). In fact, in some camps, “concentration camp songs” were composed, often at great risk and under very difficult conditions, the contents of which generally attempt to grapple with the reality of life in the camps, the depressing situation, the harsh conditions, or the fears and hopes of the prisoners (Fackler, 2007). Thirdly, in some cases, song lyrics were a substitute for the lack of other means of communication, e.g., newspapers or radio broadcasts. Via the lyrics, messages were transmitted from place to place and served as evidence of the Jewish fate (Gilbert, 2005). Fourthly, the songs and their lyrics raised many difficult questions concerning faith in humankind, faith in God, the apparent absence of God, the complete solitude of the Jew and the solitude and purpose of the Jewish nation. On the other hand, liturgical music enhanced spiritual expression at times of religious conflict (Hoch, 2002). Fifthly, songs replaced dialogue, bridging the cultural gap between the Jews who came from different backgrounds and spoke different languages. In some camps, there were block performances, some of which were organized, others spontaneous, which reflected the many cultures represented among the national, ethnic, and other groups of prisoners (Fackler, 2007). Finally, after the Holocaust, the songs became a testimony to remember those who did not survive and as a means of coping with the torment (Mazado, 2007).

In striking contrast to this, however, there are studies that report horrific uses of music during the Holocaust (Brauer, 2009; Fackler, 2003, 2007; Naliwajek-Mazurek, 2013; Toltz, 2004). Music was used by the Nazis as an element of torture and was intertwined with genocidal actions in places such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, and Majdanek (Naliwajek-Mazurek, 2013). Fackler (2007) stresses that it was quite common that camp inmates were inevitably confronted by music in one way or another. For instance, singing on command, where failure to obey or satisfy the guards could incur fatal consequences, was used to frighten, humiliate, and degrade prisoners. Such “on command” music was used to demoralize prisoners by deliberately asking them to sing songs that were emotionally significant to them (e.g., ridiculing religion or ideology, songs with words that degraded and humiliated the prisoners). Many large camps set up official camp ensembles and in some cases there were several ensembles operating simultaneously. They were designed as camouflage and propaganda when Red Cross delegations visited the camps (Toltz, 2004), but eventually also served as a status symbol for the camp commanders. Camp ensembles were used in several ways, such as to provide the rhythm that helped to keep the marching columns of prisoners in step, as background music for punishments and executions, and as entertainment for the SS, and with permission – for the prisoners. In Majdanek, an extermination camp, loud dance music was played during executions to confuse the victims, to quiet them, and also to drown out the screams of the dying (Fackler, 2007), and in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, loud marching music was played when people were being shot, for similar reasons (Brauer, 2009).

In the present study, we would like to examine the perspective of musician Holocaust survivors, the people who produced music during the Holocaust. We are interested in their input regarding the roles that music had on their lives. This personal information could shed more light on this phenomenon of music during the hardest of times and reveal whether music and music-making was perceived as a means to help them or whether music and music-making was identified with the oppressors. It should be stressed that we were not interested in the perceived roles that music had in a specific concentration camp. We therefore aimed to obtain a heterogeneous group of musician Holocaust survivors who came from different countries of origin and were imprisoned at different concentration camps, or were not sent to a concentration camp at all. Moreover, focusing on musicians implies that music might have had an effect not only during the Holocaust, but perhaps before and after it. As such, it is important to research the role music played for the Holocaust survivor not only during the Holocaust, but also before and after it.

The purpose of this study was therefore to understand the roles that music played for musician Holocaust survivors from their personal perspective. To do this, we interviewed Holocaust survivors who had a musical background and asked them to describe whether and how music helped them to survive. A qualitative research approach was adopted, which is renowned for its advantages in fostering a deeper understanding of events and their subjective aspects. Qualitative research, and more specifically the phenomenological approach that we adopted, is mostly interested in the participants’ interpretations and experiences of the phenomenon and it does not try to decipher what “really” happened (Creswell, 2007; Smith & Osborn, 2003). Therefore, we were not concerned about the many years that have passed since the Holocaust, or about the effects that the trauma might have had on participants. Their accounts were accepted as is and through them we tried to understand what music meant to them and how it served them. Our research question was: What were the psychological roles and functions of music for musician Holocaust survivors before, during, and after the Holocaust?

Method

Participants

Seven musician Holocaust survivors, five women and two men, aged between 73 and 95 years, participated in the study. Participants were sampled according to purposive sampling principles (Given, 2008). First, “criterion sampling” was applied since the common denominators of all participants were that they were Holocaust survivors, they were musicians, and they were lucid and (physically and mentally) healthy. Under these constraints, “maximum variation sampling” was applied: participants were from both genders, different ages, from different countries of origin, with different musical backgrounds (professional, amateur, classical, Jewish, played different instruments), and had different Holocaust backgrounds (some were in concentration camps, others were hidden by foster families, and yet others were in death camps). The participants were recruited by petitioning associations assisting Holocaust survivors (e.g., Amcha, Beit HaEidut in Nir Galim) or by means of acquaintances, a task that was by no means simple since there are so few survivors still alive today, especially since the participants had to have had a musical connection since childhood. Only one participant was a professional musician; the rest were amateurs. All interviewees were healthy at the time the interviews took place, and none of them reported any memory problems or other age-related health problems. Table 1 provides additional information about the participants, and Appendix 1 gives a more detailed account of the survivors’ background so as to contextualize their reflections and ideas before and during the Holocaust.

Table 1.

Information about the participants.

Name	Country of origin	Year of birth	Musical interest	Main places during the war
Bella	Poland	1925	Harmonica	Several work camps
Leah	Holland	1936	Choir singer	Bergen Belsen
Edith	Czechoslovakia	1914	Professional pianist	Theresienstadt
Israel	Hungary	1922	Cantor	Bergen Belsen
Shalom	Lithuania	1933	Choir singer	Kovno Ghetto
Esther	Lithuania	1925	Pianist	Hidden in homes
Greta	Austria	1929	Choir singer	Theresienstadt

Note. All participants explicitly requested not to use aliases for their names. They said this study was a way to commemorate their roots.

Tools

Data was collected using semi-structured in-depth interviews (Smith, Flower, & Larkin, 2009). The interviewer (the first author of this article) asked questions regarding the participant’s biography, his or her musical background, and the ways music helped him or her throughout and after the Holocaust, to present day. Interviews lasted between 2 and 3 hours. In two cases there was a need to return for a follow-up interview. Interviews were all recorded on a SanDisk MP3 recorder, and later transcribed word by word for further analysis.

Procedure

Participants were contacted by telephone and given an explanation of the general idea of the study. They were asked to participate in a one-on-one interview at a location of their choice. If they consented, an appointment was made. At the beginning of each interview, the purpose of the study was reiterated and the interviewee was asked to sign an informed consent form. When the data analysis was well underway, we sent the results to participants to enhance research credibility and to give interviewees control over the information they revealed during the interview. They had the freedom to omit or revise parts of their interview, if they felt the need.

Data analysis

The verbatim interview scripts were analyzed qualitatively, according to the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) framework (IPA; Smith & Osborn, 2003), where the researcher refers not only to the explicit description of participants’ experience of the phenomena (the phenomenological part of the analysis) but also to possible implicit interpretations of what the participant is saying (the interpretative part of the analysis). In the first phase of the IPA, materials are read thoroughly and the meanings bestowed to the phenomena are denoted. In addition, meanings of the phenomena that the researcher understands and interprets from the script are denoted. In the second phase, recurring themes are noted and subsequently organized hierarchically into categories.

Research credibility was achieved as follows: (1) Material acquired by the interviews and the way they were analyzed was presented to a colleague who has no connection to the field of music therapy. Her feelings, understandings, and comments portrayed an additional perspective of the material, enabling further awareness; (2) Research results including their derived categories were sent to the interviewees. There were no comments so we did not alter the scripts and results section.

The following steps were taken to ensure proper ethical standards: (1) Participants signed informed consent forms; (2) Participants were assured complete anonymity. However, all participants explicitly asked to use their real names; (3) Participants were explicitly told they could leave the study at any point and that this would be perfectly understood and respected; (4) If the interviewer felt that the interviewees were in distress, she offered to refer them to a counselor that had experience treating Holocaust survivors (this did not actually happen with any of the interviewees); (5) This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Music Department at Bar-Ilan University.

Findings

Based on the analysis of the interviews, we divided the findings into five time periods: (1) prior to the Holocaust; (2) the outset of the Holocaust; (3) during the Holocaust; (4) the aftermath of the Holocaust and; (5) present day. In addition, we found a sixth category that had a cross-temporal nature, which was termed “transitional objects.” In this category, we describe musical objects that survivors clung to during and after the Holocaust for consolation. Table 2 provides an overview of the roles that music had during these five time periods and of the sixth overarching category.

Table 2.

An overview of the roles music had during five time periods and a sixth overarching category.

Stage 1:Prior to the Holocaust	Stage 2:Outset of the Holocaust	Stage 3:During the Holocaust	Stage 4:Aftermath of the Holocaust	Stage 5:Present day
Identity formation	Maintaining routine	Survival	Rehabilitation	Identity re-formation
Beyond time: Transitional objects
Comfort, connection to (normal) reality, commemoration

We will now describe the roles that music played during each of these periods, and give examples. It should be noted that each category and sub-category was based on several references from different participants. However, due to space constraints we will provide only one or two citations for each category/sub-category.

Prior to the Holocaust: Identity formation

For all of the participants, the years before the Holocaust were their childhood years. Music was dominant during these years and it had a central role in molding their identity and defining their special place within their family and social environment. For one, participants stressed the dominant presence of music in their homes. Leah, for instance, described the musical atmosphere that she was brought up in:

During the week, we had many musicians come over and play, or my father would take my sister and me to concerts. My father was a composer, a violist, and a pianist.

Edith’s home, to give another example, went through major changes after she was discovered to be a musical prodigy. The entire family got involved in her musical life and even moved to a different city so that she could develop and progress in her piano playing.

I lived a very special life, because I did not go to school. My father took me to the doctor and told him that I’m weak and sick and that I cannot go to school. And so I went to a private school, third grade to fifth grade and besides that I just practiced the piano.

Participants’ musical environments included either classical Western music, traditional Jewish music, or a combination of the two. Leah, for instance, recounted a combined musical environment in which her family members used to sing traditional Jewish songs on Shabbat,² and during the rest of the week, they used to listen to classical music and go to many concerts.

For some interviewees, music played another role in defining their identity, that of solidifying their unique place in the family. Esther, for instance, described how thanks to her outstanding musical talents she developed a special connection with her stepfather, and how this caused her step siblings to envy her. “He took me as a child to the Synagogue, put me on the table and I sang a solo. He was very proud of me. His children (from his first marriage) rather envied me because he loved me so much.” Edith recounted how ever since her musical talents were discovered, her relationship with her sister was damaged. Her sister stopped playing the piano and the distance between them grew. It is evident from Edith’s account that she felt guilty for this deteriorated relationship, and that later in life, the feelings of guilt intensified when she found out that her sister had died in the death camps. “My sister, as soon as she saw that I was more talented, stopped playing and was no longer thought to be a pianist.”

In addition to the role of music in the context of the family, music served as a means to define the interviewees’ cultural identity. Israel, for instance, recounted how he was brought up in the Satmar congregation, which in addition to other distinctive ways of life has unique liturgical music. For Satmar members, this music is an all-encompassing soundtrack of their lives. This music was so basic in Israel’s identity that even when he decided to leave the Satmar way of life and ideology after the Holocaust, he could not let go of its music, which he continued to pass on to his children and to the people in his community.

Bella gives another example of how music was used to define cultural identity. As a child, she was influenced both by traditional Jewish music, which she heard at home, and by Christian music, which she heard at school (but was not approved of at home). She chose, however, to embrace these two contrasting cultures by choosing to play the harmonica. On the one hand, it was considered by Bella’s Orthodox father as a non-Jewish instrument because it was used to play non-Jewish folk music. On the other hand, Bella played Jewish tunes on it to please her father.

Music also gave the interviewees a special social status and therefore a special identity: the musician, the wonder-child, the singer. The schools where the interviewees learned cooperated with this. They gave these children special lead roles in plays, concerts, and performances that were held at the schools. Evidently, this special status helped the interviewees during the Holocaust. For some, it was the only reason they survived. Interestingly, the different levels of identity gained by music (individual, social, cultural) resemble those found in studies about music and identity formation (e.g., Barrett, 2011; Boer & Fischer, 2010; Juuti & Littleton, 2010).

The outset of the Holocaust: Maintaining routine

When the Holocaust began, Jews were submitted to various prohibitions, such as not using public transportation, not entering public zones, etc. Participants referred to the instability that characterized this period. Participants did not speak about this stage at length.

In this chaotic atmosphere, participants did their best to maintain their routine, and music had a central role in these attempts. They recounted how they did everything possible to keep on playing and making music. Because moving around town became increasingly difficult for Jews, music was played in private, at homes, and in small ensembles. Esther, for instance, described how she continued to study at home by herself since she was not allowed to study with her (non-Jewish) piano teacher:

At the beginning I played at home and I continued to study with my teacher. She was a very good friend of the Jews; all her students were Jews… Later on, I continued to teach myself, on my own. Then in 1941 they took us out of school until 1942. So we took private lessons in small groups. At that time I taught myself Schubert’s and Brahms’ lieder. I used to sing and accompany myself on the piano…

Esther and other participants described this music-making as an obvious thing to do. However, we must remember how unusual and remarkable this was. These people were in constant danger; they had to take care of their most basic needs to survive. Yet of all things, it was important for them to keep playing music.

During the Holocaust: Survival

The participants describe the period when they were in the ghettos and the death camps as horrendous: there was chaos, hunger, loss of individuality, terror, death, loss of family members and friends, and a constant dread of what might happen next. Despite this, music continued to accompany the lives of participants, each in his or her own way. We found four distinct roles that music had during this stage.

Granting identity

Here are two examples of this role: When Edith arrived at Theresienstadt, she was not referred to as just another “number,” she was referred to and to some extent treated as “the pianist.” She recalled that people in the camp eagerly awaited her concerts and enthusiastically clapped at the end. This enabled her to maintain her identity as an artist despite the drastic change in life conditions: “People in Terezin knew me. So they came up to me and asked if I wanted to give a concert.” Israel, when he was in Bergen Belsen, was referred to as “the singer from Bergen Belsen.” Occasionally he used to go from cabin to cabin in the camp and sing traditional songs from his childhood congregation. He testified that he took this “job” upon himself mainly because it gave him an identity: Without it he would have been just another “number”: “I was lucky. I went to the cabins and they (the prisoners) knew me because I sang every night. The next day I got ‘Dregmizha,’ a kind of watery soup from the prisoners. It was lifesaving.”

Coping strategies: Distraction, venting

Participants stressed how music was an important distraction; a way to escape the horror, to give them a moment of sanity. Edith, for example, recounts:

It was fantastic! I was so happy that I could play! I forgot all of the troubles around me and it helped me tremendously… this gave me powers that others did not have … this is probably the reason that I was never sick…

Greta, to give another example, was chosen to play the lead role of Aninka in the Brundibar opera.³ This role enabled her to live in a fantastic reality in which she was a little girl who managed to defeat the villain:

There I was, on stage. I was Aninka, I went to school, I had a dog, a cat, I had ice-cream, I had milk. This was all a fantasy, but it was a wonderful fantasy. When I was on stage, I simply forgot everything else. Performing gave me a few hours of sanity.

Together with her sister, Leah used to meet her father every evening and they would sing together music that her father composed at the concentration camp. To her, music represented the ability to be together as a family, the ability to preserve her “normality,” or as she put it: “When my father met me in Bergen Belsen and we would sing together, it transported me to another world; I forgot where I was at that time.”

Music enabled participants to express feelings that would otherwise be silenced and repressed. Making music enabled them to vent emotions that built up as a result of the tremendous stress they were exposed to. Esther, for instance, had the rare opportunity to play the piano during the Holocaust. She described these precious moments of playing:

The music spoke to me, and I spoke to the music. I expressed all of my feelings through the music: all of the sadness, the disappointment, and the gratitude to my foster family.

Helping others

Edith, for instance, recounted how the concerts she gave helped others:

… the music helped them to forget their personal tragedies, and [they] were happy to enjoy two hours of sanity during the concert. People were so grateful for this.

Bella, to give another example, kept the harmonica throughout the Holocaust, and played it even in the camps. In the evenings, she led dances and enabled happiness and joy to creep in. Bella described how this enabled a sense of community in an otherwise shattered reality (and see Gerber et al., 2014, about the importance of community in traumatic and post-traumatic environments and the role of music in forming communities). Israel too, described how his singing in the cabins helped others: “In the camps, people felt like insects… the Germans did with us whatever they wanted and we had no control over this whatsoever. When I sang, I restored people’s awareness of what they used to be, back at home.”

Physical survival

Participants recounted how music was a means by which they achieved better physical conditions. Edith, for example, was “rewarded” with better food, and a private bed.

I got a better room in which there were only three women. I was with two singers in one room and it was very nice. Before this we were ten in the room … After each concert we got a little margarine and sugar; it was our “payment” for the concert. We ate the sugar immediately because we didn’t know if we would survive the next day.

Greta said that after every “Brundibar” performance she received some sugar and margarine, which were priceless in the camp. Israel would receive an additional spoonful of “Dregmizha,” a murky soup that was served once a day, as a “payment” for singing in the cabins.

The aftermath of the Holocaust: Rehabilitation

After the Holocaust, survivors tried to put their lives back together. First, they went back to their homes searching for relatives or friends who survived the Holocaust. Concurrently, survivors sought mental rehabilitation and this is where their musical abilities were useful. Many participants stated that music was the main force that prompted them to get on with their lives. Esther, for instance, opened an orphanage for Jewish girls and used her musical skills to raise the girls’ spirits and to remind them of their cultural origins. She founded a choir that sang Jewish and Israeli songs. Due to her intensive activity, Esther was granted a certificate and she immigrated to Israel where she continued to play the piano. She recounts how despite the fact that she barely had money for basic needs, she insisted on going to concerts and buying records:

We didn’t have money for bread. But my husband knew that I bought a record every other month. In the beginning he didn’t understand how I could waste money on this … so I told him: “this is my psychiatrist, my psychologist, this is my medicine, my food. I cannot live without this…”

Edith, to give another example, continued with her career as a pianist almost immediately after the war ended. She began playing the music of several Jewish composers, such as Viktor Ullmann and Pavel Hess, at her concerts. These composers were persecuted by the Nazis and Edith took it upon herself to commemorate their music:

After the Holocaust I went to Germany, at first I didn’t want to go there, but then I met a lot of nice people. I gave talks to children at schools and to German Jews about the Holocaust and about Viktor Ullmann.

Present day: Identity re-formation

Describing the present day was, to the participants, like a summary of their musical activity throughout their lives. Music played three main roles in this context. First, participants described the importance of music in their current lives. Israel, for example, recounted how he continued to be the cantor in his village, year after year, for 55 years. He sang the same traditional tunes that he was brought up on back in Hungary when he was in the Satmar congregation. Esther enveloped her life with music: “I sing with music, I am happy with music, I am sad with music, I cry with music, I think with music.” She recounts how she subscribes to three different orchestras. Shalom described music as his life potion. As an adult, he decided to make up for everything he missed out on as a child during the Holocaust. He learned how to play the accordion, the recorder, and the oboe. At the age of 70, he decided to fulfill another dream and he started to play the piano.

Second, participants stressed how music helped them to commemorate their past. As we described above, Edith set a goal to commemorate the works of Jewish composers who did not survive the Holocaust. She performed them numerous times and recorded some of them. She joined delegations to Germany and lectured to German youth about these works. Greta, to give another example, was asked to translate “Brundibar” to Hebrew, and she happily obliged. She saw this as a great opportunity to pay homage to those who participated in this production at Theresienstadt. Later on, she took part in a project in Germany where German children put on “Brundibar” and then discussed it and the Holocaust. Greta said that: “Every time I am there, they ask me to sing the final song together ‘If we all unite, together we shall win this war’.” She also shares her insights with the children: “I tell the children to look around the room and ask them “Isn’t it more interesting that everyone has different colored eyes and different hair? [I tell them] what I learned from the Holocaust was to respect those that are different from us.” Leah got hold of the original scores of her father’s music and she gave it to the Hebrew University archives. She also organized a special musical event in which her father’s songs were performed. On Holocaust Memorial Day, there was a concert that was documented by the Israeli television broadcasting station. In this concert, they performed with songs that her father composed at Bergen Belsen.

Third, participants mentioned a musical successor, either from their offspring or from their students, who continued their musical tradition. Leah, for instance, told about her son who was a composer. She was proud of him because he continued her father’s path as a composer. She spoke about her grandchildren as well, some of which are actively involved in music-making: “When I hear my son, the composer, playing music, I feel wonderful. This immediately reminds me of my father.” Israel proudly described his daughter who continued along his path and became a performing singer. In her show she combines her father’s Holocaust story and the tunes that he revived.

These examples illustrate how the musical successors are immensely important to the participants. In addition to the natural pride that parents feel when their children succeed, there was a feeling of victory. It was a victory over the Nazis who planned to exterminate the Jewish nation, and who did not succeed in doing so. The successors were the evidence for this. They were alive, they were renowned performers, and above all, they were performing the exact same music that the Nazis planned to eradicate. The successors’ importance increased in light of the participants’ reported loss of musical abilities. After decades of music-making, of commemoration, it was time for the next generation to take over.

Beyond time: Transitional objects

In addition to the five temporal stages reported above, we found a sixth category that had a cross-temporal nature. We chose to call this category “transitional objects,” a term we borrowed from Winnicott (1971). According to Winnicott it is typical for toddlers to cling to objects (e.g., a pacifier, blanket, specific doll, and even a specific tune) in order to bridge between the real world, which repeatedly disappoints them, and between their fantasy world, which they supposedly create and therefore have control over. These objects are transitional because they are somewhere between reality and fantasy, and also because they help toddlers to progress from one developmental stage to another. In any case, transitional objects are a consolation to their users.

In the context of the present study, “transitional objects” were objects that were deeply meaningful to the participants and which were held on to throughout several stages of their lives. Like Winnicott’s transitional objects, these objects were also a great consolation to their owners; like Winnicott’s transitional objects, these objects were part reality and part fantasy as they represented other (more normal) stages in their lives.

Bella’s harmonica, mentioned earlier, serves as a good example of such a transitional object. Bella purchased this instrument before the Holocaust and it was charged with deep and contrasting cultural meanings. The fact that her father chose to give her this object as a farewell present before they were separated is an indication of its high emotional value. Her father’s last will, his request to look after this harmonica, was imprinted on it. Indeed, Bella used this harmonica, as her father requested, and it saved her and her friends’ sanity during the Holocaust. Unfortunately however, the harmonica was lost as the war came to an end but its memory stayed with Bella, and she passed the story on to younger generations, to other people.

Leah’s transitional objects were her father’s songs, the original scores he wrote. These scores were written during the Holocaust and were used by Leah, her sister and her father when they met on evenings in the camp and sang together. The scores disappeared for years but were found again at her sister’s home. The original scores are preserved in the Hebrew University archives and Leah keeps a copy. During her interview, this was the first thing she presented, and she kept holding on to these scores throughout the interview. The scores reminded her of her beloved father. She sings his songs on many occasions and they give her great comfort and consolation.

Edith’s transitional object was a notebook with her piano teacher’s notes. She admired him and managed to keep the notebook with her throughout the Holocaust. Table 3 summarizes the transitional objects that we found in this study with an account of the stages in which the object was “active.”

Table 3.

Some examples of transitional objects in the study and their longevity throughout the five stages.

	Stage 2:Outset of the Holocaust	Stage 3:During the Holocaust	Stage 4:Aftermath of the Holocaust	Stage 5:Present day
Bella	Harmonica		(lost)
Leah		Father’s	scores
Edith		Schnable’s	notebook
Israel	Satmar	tunes
Shalom			Notebook	with songs
Esther		French	songs

Discussion

The goal of the present study was to investigate the roles of music for musician Holocaust survivors. Findings showed that music had many roles for the survivors, not only during the Holocaust, but also before and after it. As can be seen in Table 2, music had a central role in identity formation before the Holocaust (stage 1) as well as in identity re-formation after the Holocaust (stage 5); Music helped to maintain routine as much as possible when the Holocaust began (stage 2) and to rehabilitate and regain a normal life after the Holocaust ended (stage 4); Music had many roles in survival during the Holocaust (stage 5); Lastly, musical “transitional objects” were used throughout these stages to comfort, to connect to normal life, and to commemorate the lost.

In this respect, the present study is an extension of previous studies, which focused mainly on the roles that music played during the Holocaust (stage 3). Like in some of these studies, the present study focused on musician survivors, and therefore managed to get a broad perspective of the roles that music played for the survivors. A differentiation should therefore be made between studies that gathered information about music from survivors who were consumers of the music, thus providing information about the importance of music in day-to-day survival and between studies that focused on survivors who were themselves music producers. Such survivors had much more to say about music and its roles. Music was not only an active means to be used during the Holocaust; it was also a central element in their identity-formation and in their attempts to maintain routine when the Holocaust began. Music was not only a means to cure during the horrific times of the Holocaust; it kept on echoing after the Holocaust ended. Music was deeply ingrained in the lives and identities of the musician survivors, helping them to find a way to move on and later – to look back.

This leads to one of the most striking findings in this study, that is, the existence of what we termed “transitional objects.” Although this was not the original intention of Winnicott (1971) when he introduced the term, there are many similarities between the original use of the term and its use pertaining to musician Holocaust survivors. In any case, the fact that all of the participants in this study reported having such an object, and in most cases it was connected to music, highlights the importance of this phenomenon and the need for further study. Perony (2002) documented a similar tendency in Holocaust survivors that she termed “survival objects.” These are objects that Holocaust survivors clung to during the Holocaust, cared for and thus enabled the object to care for them. It was a symbol of constancy in an ever-changing environment; a representative of normal life in an environment where nothing was normal. Further research may reveal which of the object’s functions are more accurate, the “survival” aspects of the object, the “transitional” aspects of it, or perhaps a combination of the two.

Regarding our finding in stage 3 which, as mentioned, were more extensively studied and documented, we found a resemblance to some of the studies and striking differences to others. Generally speaking, the roles of music that were found in this study were all positive. They resemble other studies that showed that music helped to attain a feeling of normalcy, it strengthened the survivors’ spirits (Moreno, 1999), it provided a reason to live (Flam, 1992; Gilbert, 2005), and it was a means of distraction (Gilbert, 2005). Songs were documented as a (self-) therapeutic resource (Flam, 1992; Gilbert, 2005) and as a means to commemorate loved ones (Gilbert, 2005; Mazado, 2007).

However, negative aspects and uses of music that were mentioned in other studies (Brauer, 2009; Fackler, 2003, 2007; Hoch, 2002; Moreno, 1999; Naliwajek-Mazurek, 2013; Toltz, 2004) were not found in the present study. These studies documented how the Nazis exploited music in ways that were intended to humiliate the Jews or to distract them from the atrocities that they were witnessing. In the present study we did not encounter this trend, the exception being Edith and Greta who gently implicated the revulsion they felt when they performed in the presence of the Nazi camp keepers. This can be explained in at least two ways. First, participants in this study focused mostly on the music they made out of (what was perceived as) their own choice, as opposed to music that prisoners were forced to play. Fackler (2007) points at this distinction and stresses that unlike forced music, self-initiated music generally evoked favorable connotations such as providing consolation, support and confidence, a reminder of earlier lives, diversion and entertainment, and helping to articulate feelings and deal with the existential threat of their situation, emotionally and intellectually. It could be that even in cases where participants in this study were ordered to make music (such as Edith and Greta in Theresienstadt), they preferred to reframe the situation as an act of (implicit) rebellion and revenge (and see Toltz, 2004, for a similar understanding of the prisoners’ inner motives for playing). Second, the context of the current study was different than other studies. Here, musician Holocaust survivors as research participants were not asked to isolate their musical experience in the Holocaust, but to tell about the music in their lives as a whole. It could, therefore, be that their long-lasting positive connection to music overshadowed possible negative experiences they had with music during the Holocaust. In this context, we recommend that in future research with musician Holocaust survivors, they are explicitly asked to explain how they perceive productive vs. destructive roles of music during the Holocaust.

The fact that music can be used to enhance coping with distress and with traumatic and post-traumatic situations is well documented in the psychology of music and music therapy literature (e.g., Amir, 2007; Bensimon et al., 2008, 2012; Clements-Cortes, 2008; Felsenstein, 2014; Gerber et al., 2014; Loewy & Stewart, 2004; Orth et al., 2004; Vibe & Kira, 2012) and in many respects our findings replicate and emphasize what they found. However, the findings of this study are unique in two ways: First, the multifaceted roles that music had in different stages of life and in different contexts (see Table 2). This is to say that in contrast to other studies that showed that music could help in one distressful context or another, and mainly during the Holocaust, the present study found that music could help in various contexts and also after the Holocaust.

The second unique point is that unlike traumatized participants who attended music therapy sessions, the participants in this study did not and could not use music therapeutically in its traditional form. It is our suggestion, however, that they were using a form of “self-music therapy,” or what the literature calls “health musicking” (Bonde, 2011; Ruud, 2010, 2013; Stige, 2002). According to this line of thought, the interviewees obliviously used music and especially their music making (= musicking) to exploit the health-promoting functions of music. The context is not restricted to a clinical one. Bonde (2011), for instance, suggests that:

…health musicking is not limited to a professional therapeutic context. It can be observed in any social or individual practice where people use music experiences to create meaning and coherence in states and times of adversity… In this way, health musicking can be understood as the common core of any use of music experiences to regulate emotional or relational states or to promote well-being, be it therapeutic or not, professionally assisted or self-made. Social science research in recent years has documented some of the many ways in which music is used to promote health by “lay people” in their daily lives. (p. 121)

Ruud (2010) gives examples of the powers of such musicking. According to him it is

… a provider of vitality; … a tool for developing agency and empowerment; it is a resource or social capital in building social networks; a way of providing meaning and coherence in life. (p. 111)

We therefore suggest that musician Holocaust survivors were actually health musicking. They used music and especially music-making to maintain their mental health, to protect their sanity, and to reassemble their lives after the Holocaust. The novelty of this study with regards to “health musicking” is that it can be done even in the worst social conditions, even in the darkest of times.

We believe that the fact that musician Holocaust survivors could lean on music before, during, and after the Holocaust, helped them to adjust to life more successfully and with less pain than other Holocaust survivors who did not have this kind of mental anchor. An example is Danieli’s (1982, 1988) typology of Holocaust survivor families, which classifies survivors into two adaptive types (“warrior families” and “those who made it families”) and two less adaptive, more vulnerable types (“victim families” and “numb families”). It is evident from the accounts of the participants in this study that most, if not all of them, fell into the more adaptive types. They “made it” after the Holocaust as musicians and in some cases, so did their children. Another example of the resilience of the musician Holocaust survivors in this study is the fact that they all reported speaking about the Holocaust to their children and/or to others. This is in contrast to the well documented phenomenon of “conspiracy of silence,” where Holocaust survivors and their children are subconsciously complicit in not discussing the trauma (Schindler, Spiegel, & Malachi, 1992), hence preventing the trauma from being worked through and resolved, and in some cases increasing the probability that traumatic symptoms are transferred to the second generation. Could it be that with the participants of this study, the presence of music “dissolved” the “conspiracy of silence”? Some support for this possibility can be found in Schulberg’s (1997) study, which suggested that art-form has the power to deal with the “conspiracy of silence.” Often, when it is difficult to express feelings in words or to describe what happened, music can help. A song can be sung, and the message could thus be delivered to the second generation. There were several examples of this in the present study. However, further research, possibly with second generation Holocaust survivors with music in the family as participants, is required to substantiate this point.

There is a major limitation to be pointed out here. The present study, being qualitative, is based on a small sample of participants and it is not yet possible to make general conclusions regarding music and coping with the trauma of the Holocaust. That is, the fact that the musician survivors in this particular study were found to be more adaptive than other survivors does not mean that all musician survivors coped with the Holocaust and its effects, better than others. Further studies are required to see if the findings of this study are reconfirmed and to broaden the understanding of its roles in this environment. Here are several possible recommendations for such studies. First, we suggest that other musician Holocaust survivors are traced and interviewed. Considering the old age of the survivors, this is becoming increasingly more difficult. However, the information is invaluable and the effort is worthwhile. We also recommend that second generation musicians be interviewed to examine whether music had an influence on the survivors’ families. Studies have shown that second generation survivors often carry some of their parents’ traumas (Avinadav-Woolrich, 2005; Brom, Kfir, & Dasberg, 2001; Dasberg, 1987) and it is important to know whether music had a role in these dynamics. As noted before, there were some indications for this in the present study, but further investigation is required.

Our reflective account of this study is quite personal. Since both of us are Jewish, one of us third generation to Holocaust survivors, we were naturally moved to take part in such a study that touches upon the most delicate memories of people in our nation. In addition, we are both professional music therapists who strongly believe in the power of music to heal, but also in its ability to destroy, and we thus found it fascinating to unfold the stories of the musician Holocaust survivors in this study and to reveal its many roles in their survival. This provided us with important insights into our work with clients of various populations in which we seek, in one way or another, how to enable music to aid in difficult times and situations.

Footnotes

Appendix 1: General information about the interviewees

Edith was born in Vienna in 1913 to a Czech family, the younger of two sisters. She was a piano prodigy and rapidly became a famous pianist under the supervision of Arthur Schnabel, a well-known pianist in Berlin. When World War II started, she had to stop playing in public. In 1942, she was sent to Theresienstadt and played in concerts that took place regularly at the concentration camp. In 1943, she met Viktor Ullmann, a well-known Jewish composer who was later sent to his death in Auschwitz. He requested that Edith play his sixth sonata which he composed in the camp. Edith stayed in Theresienstadt until the end of the war. She immigrated to Israel in 1949 and continued her musical career as a pianist, playing music composed by musicians that were persecuted during the Holocaust. Her concerts were often played on the radio. She also worked as a piano teacher in music academies located in Tel Aviv, Canada, and the US.

Israel was born in Satmar, Hungary in 1922. He grew up in a Hassidic environment and his childhood was filled with the unique liturgical sounds of the Satmar congregation. Possessing a beautiful voice, he started to lead prayers from a young age and also organized a synagogue choir. In 1944, when the Nazis entered Hungary, Israel was send to a detainee’s camp in Ukraine, and later on he was sent to Bergen Belsen, where he was known by the prisoners as “the Cantor from Bergen Belsen.” Israel would walk between bunks and sing Yiddish songs. His fellow mates were greatly appreciative, and at times shared scraps of food with him. In 1948, he immigrated to Israel and in 1953 he settled in a small religious village called Nir Galim. As the cantor of the village, he evoked the tunes and songs from his Satmar congregation, an unknown novelty to the community. One of Israel’s three children is a singer and she performs the songs of his tradition.

Esther was born in Lithuania in 1925. Her father was a composer and a violinist, and her mother was an opera singer. Her parents divorced when she was a young girl, and her mother remarried a relative in Belgium. Esther was a very talented pianist. During the Holocaust, she jumped from the train that was on its way to a concentration camp and was hidden by local families for the rest of the Holocaust, some of which had a piano that she could play. She played at a church every Sunday morning as part of her cover. After the Holocaust, Esther returned to Brussels and worked in an orphanage for Jewish girls. She immigrated to Israel in 1946 and worked as a kindergarten teacher.

Leah was born in Amsterdam in 1936 to a religious Zionist family. Her father was a composer and played various instruments. In this musical house, Leah started to teach herself the piano at a very young age. During the Holocaust, Leah’s family was deported to Westerbork transit camp and eventually to Bergen Belsen. Throughout this time, her father composed music at Bergen Belsen. He would compose songs on scrap paper, and then teach it to his daughters when they managed to meet. A year after the Holocaust ended, Leah immigrated to Israel and lived in a kibbutz, where she worked as a music teacher. She was a member of a choir that performed many of the songs composed by her father.

Greta was born in Vienna in 1929. Her family fled from the Nazis to Czechoslovakia. Her parents managed to obtain certificates to Palestine, and left her and her younger sister with their aunt. In the meantime, the Holocaust began and Greta and her sister were sent to an orphanage in Czechoslovakia. In 1942, they were deported to Theresienstadt where Greta was chosen to sing the role of Aninka in the Brundibar children’s opera. In 1944, she was sent with her sister to Auschwitz, but only Greta survived. She immigrated to Israel in 1946 and worked as a radio broadcaster. She continued to sing in choirs and also translated Brundibar to Hebrew.

Shalom was born in Lithuania in 1933 to a musical family. Due to financial difficulties, Shalom did not learn to play on an instrument, however, later on in life he learned to play various instruments. In 1941, he was deported to a ghetto. In the ghetto, he joined a children’s choir. In 1944, his mother managed to smuggle Shalom out of the ghetto before it was extinguished. He immigrated to Israel in 1946 and has been singing in choirs ever since. He plays the accordion, recorder, oboe, and piano.

Bella was born to a religious family in Poland, in 1925. Her home was musical and happy. She taught herself to play the harmonica despite her father’s objection, claiming that it was not an appropriate instrument for a girl from an Orthodox home. When Bella was deported with 60 girls from her town to a concentration camp her father ran after her with her harmonica, telling her “Take your harmonica with you, it will save your life.” Bella used to play her harmonica in her bunk at night and managed to raise the spirits of her friends. After the Holocaust she immigrated to Israel and married a musician. Later, she and her husband formed a family ensemble. She played the harmonica, her husband played the trumpet and her daughter played the piano.

Appendix 2: An outline of questions to the interviewees

After introducing the general idea of the research and the intention to hear about music throughout the interviewee’s lives, the interviewee was asked to start from childhood:

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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