Tag Archives: Terezin musicians

Hans Neumeyer and Irma Kuhn: Sharing Gifts of Music and Poetry in Terezin

Terezin Musicians, ,

Though there are many accounts of the incredibly gifted artists, musicians, and writers of Terezin, there are few existing accounts of individuals with disabilities in the ghetto.

The Nazis brutally persecuted people with disabilities, and having any kind of disability could be a potential death sentence. And if someone was Jewish and had a disability,
their chance of survival was extremely low. Yet, in spite of these impossible odds,
there were gifted people with disabilities who left an indelible mark on the world, even
while imprisoned in a Nazi ghetto. And two of these individuals were Hans Neumeyer,
a pianist, composer, and music teacher and his older sister Irma, who had a gift for writing poetry.

Irma and Hans Neumeyer: Life Before Terezin

Almost nothing is known of Irma, or what her relationship with her brother was like. It’s known that she was an intelligent and thoughtful person, with a gift for writing poetry, as this manuscript reveals.

A page from the manuscript of a poem Irma wrote in Terezin. Her signature appears on the top left side of the page. Used with permission of Tim Locke.

We know much more about Hans, who was born in Munich on September 13,1887 to a Jewish family. His father owned a men’s clothing store, and provided a comfortable life for his wife and children. As a child, Hans showed a strong aptitude for music. While still very young, he also developed an eye condition that caused him to slowly lose his vision. By the time Hans was 14, he was completely blind, but this didn’t hold him back from pursuing his music studies.

Hans later studied at the Academy of Music in Munich, graduating in 1909, and soon after co-authored a textbook on harmonics. He then taught at Hellerau, an
esteemed eurythmics center, where he met his future wife Vera Ephraim, one of the students.

In 1915, Hans set up his own music school with fellow musician Valeria Cratina, which they ran for the next ten years. He married Vera in 1920, and the couple settled in the artistic quarter of the city of Dachau. They had two children, Ruth and Raimund, who
they baptized as Protestants. Vera’s father was Jewish and her mother was Lutheran, and she was raised in her mother’s faith. Vera herself was very dedicated to the Lutheran faith and wanted her children baptized as well. 

The Neumeyer family on holiday in the Alps. Used with permission of Tim Locke.

But when the Nazis came to power, neither Vera nor her children were spared from Nazi persecution. Ruth and Raimund were barred from attending school, from parks, swimming pools, and movie theaters. Then, on November 8, 1938 officials from the town hall knocked on the door and ordered Vera and the children to leave before dawn or else go to prison. Faced with the choice of leaving home or going to prison, they went to stay with one of Vera’s eurythmics students in Munich, where Hans joined them. But this was only
a temporary solution and the family had to move frequently. 

At this stage, Hans’ sister Irma was living in a nursing home in Munich, since she was in frail health and had also lost her eyesight. Despite this, she would occasionally visit the family at their home. It’s unclear whether she continued to have contact with her brother and his family after they were forced to leave their home.

In May 1939, Ruth and Raimund were sent to England on a Kindertransport, where
they remained for the rest of the war. Hans and Vera intended to follow them, as Hans had secured a permit to go to a home for blind people in Leatherhead, just south of London. Tragically, Hans and Vera were never able to get out of Germany. The exact reason
is uncertain, but it seems likely that they were unable to get the permits to leave Germany.

Hans Neumeyer, circa 1937. Used with permission of Tim Locke.

Irma Kuhn and Hans Neumeyer: Deportation to Terezin

In June 1942, Hans was deported to Terezin, where he was sent to live in a special barracks for people with disabilities. Irma was also deported to Terezin from the Munich nursing home in 1942. On July 13th, 1942, Vera was deported, either to Auschwitz or to the Warsaw ghetto, where she died.

Conditions in Terezin were horrific, with many thousands of people crammed together in a confined space, meager food rations, and rampant hunger and disease. But many people who survived Terezin remembered that conditions were especially terrible for elderly men and women and those with disabilities. 

Since Hans was 55 and Irma was 68 years old and both were completely blind, their chance of long-term survival in Terezin was poor.

Yet Hans managed to survive in the camp far longer than anyone would have suspected, largely due to his musical gifts and resourcefulness. One day, Hans heard someone whistling Bach fugues and soon learned that this person was 17-year old Hans Ries, who was tasked with bringing food to sick and disabled inmates. Ries soon became a student of Hans, who gave him music lessons in exchange for soup and bread. 

Hans began to take on more music students, including a 16-year old violinist named Thomas Mandl. Hans’ students called him “The Professor”, and those who
survived remembered him as a man of sharp intelligence and quick wit, who
always listened attentively to his students. While Hans had an easy smile, he possessed mental strength and toughness as well. Thomas Mandl remembered the calm and refined way Hans would eat his soup ration, despite the intense hunger he and the other
Terezin inmates lived with every day. And Hans never turned away a student who
couldn’t provide a bread or soup ration. 

Hans taught his students a wide variety of topics, including harmony, intonation, rhythm, and counterpoint. One of his most successful students was Thomas, who
practiced diligently each night on the violin he’d brought into the ghetto. Hans
would listen to him play and offer suggestions for improvement. They often
discussed other topics as well, like politics and cultural events that were happening
in the ghetto.

The lessons continued until late 1943, when Hans contracted tuberculosis and was sent to a section of the ghetto infirmary for tuberculosis patients. Thomas and his other students continued to visit him when they could, and even from his sickbed Hans urged them to stay strong and not to lose hope. 

His sister Irma passed away in 1943, soon before Hans became ill. Little is known of Irma’s time in Terezin, but we know that she somehow managed to find her brother in the ghetto and reconnect with him. And during her time in Terezin, Irma composed a
deeply impassioned  and intricate poem, which she dictated to another inmate. 

Page from the manuscript of Irma’s poem, with a hand-drawn Star of David. Used with permission of Tim Locke.

The poem was dedicated to her brother Hans, and Irma presumably found
someone to deliver it to him. The poem’s imagery draws on Jewish symbolism
and tradition, and even expresses a hope for redemption, like in these powerful lines:

“I hear the sounds of the spheres

I hear the harp’s song

And I am adorned with the star

Within which Judea triumphs.

It leads us once from home

And will lead us back once more.

To our hearth, our table, our camp

It is our highest happiness.

 

And peace, peace, peace, will spread in the room

Peace signifies this dream

It is peace that the Lord has given us

In omnipotence, grace, goodness,

protected, shielded, guided

He who never in his life

Was deprived of freedom

Does not know the greatest evil

He does not know the power of freedom.

 

Most gracious Father of all, you have heard our plea

Those who are humiliated like us,

Only you can lift them up

Come then, sisters, brothers

In ghettos near and far

Hear the great news

The day of the Lord is near.”

Words and text copyright Tim Locke, 12.8.2022, translation by Lauren Leiderman. Used with permission of Tim Locke.

One can’t help but wonder if Irma wrote the poem for her brother intending him to set it to music. As he was teaching music in Theresienstadt, it seems likely that he would have wanted to compose as well. He could have dictated the music to one of his music students to write down.

It’s hard to imagine the depth of emotions that must have rushed through Hans when he received his sister’s poem. Sadly, his feelings about the poem remain unknown, as Hans died from tuberculosis in the spring of 1944.

The Legacy of Hans Neumeyer and Irma Kuhn

Little of Hans’s work survives, other than a string duo and string trio, a Christmas song written in December 1939 for his son Raimund, and two recorder duets written for his daughter Ruth in Easter 1940. Ruth and her brother remained in England after the war, and both eventually married and had families of their own. 

Many years later, in 2005, Ruth recounted her family’s story to the Imperial War Museum in London. Ruth’s son Tim also commemorates Hans, Irma, and the rest of their family on a blog called The Ephraims and the Neumeyers. 

Thanks to the tireless efforts of Hans’ and Irma’s surviving family, their legacy lives on, an incredible testament to their determination, resilience, and creative brilliance that the Nazis could never extinguish. 

Further Reading

Irma’s Final Word From Theresienstadt

Mandl’s Testimony of Theresienstadt

 

Gideon Klein and the Terezin String Trio

Terezin Musicians, ,
The Vltava River in Prague. The Conservatory where Gideon Klein studied is only a short walk from the river.
The Vltava River in Prague. The Conservatory where Gideon Klein studied is only a short walk from the river.

Born in 1919 in Prerov, Moravia, Czechoslovakia to assimilated Czech-Jewish family, Gideon Klein showed talent for music at a young age. His supportive parents decided he should move to Prague to get the best musical education available. Klein moved to Prague and lived with his older sister, Eliska, who was a student there. By 1939, Klein was studying musicology at Charles University and composition at the Prague Conservatory with renowned composer Alois Haba. In 1940, however, the Nazis closed many Czech universities and restricted Jews from higher education. Over the next year, more prohibitions were passed against Jews, who had to wear a yellow star badge and were forbidden to leave the country. Jewish composers were forbidden to give public performances, but Klein and some other composers attempted to circumvent these laws. For a time, Gideon did find a way to give public performances, by posing as a Christian, with the use of a pseudonym. When it became too dangerous to continue, he instead performed in secret venues and taught music classes to children at the Prague Orphanage. Gideon was offered a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music in London during this time, but had to turn it down because the Nazis would not let him leave Czechoslovakia.

Gideon was in one of the first transports to Terezin, in December 1941. The people on these transports, many of them young men, were tasked with preparing the camp for the arrival of thousands of more prisoners. When the later transports arrived, the children were separated from their parents and made to live in homes, and Klein took it upon himself to teach music to these children. At this time, such activities were forbidden in Terezin, but Klein was undeterred and continued to secretly teach the children about music, poetry, and literature. Over the next few years, he became one of the prime organizers of cultural activity in the camp. He also composed a variety of musical works, including his String Trio, String Quartet and a piano sonata. In addition, Gideon performed at numerous recitals and chamber music events at Terezin.

Gideon was transported to Auschwitz on October 16, 1944 and survived the initial selection. He was later sent to a forced labor camp, and as the Allies began to advance, Gideon and about 1,000 other prisoners were taken by the SS on a death march toward the west. It is certain that he did not survive the war, but the exact circumstances of his death remain unknown.

Gideon’s Terezin works still survive, preserved by his girlfriend at Terezin, Irma Semtska, who survived the war. Irma reconnected with Gideon’s sister Eliska in Prague following liberation and gave her the compositions. Academics only had access to these works for many years, leading to the misconception that Klein only developed as a composer during the war. Then, in 1990, a family friend discovered a suitcase which contained numerous compositions that Klein wrote before the war. The works included chamber music for strings and woodwind, piano sonatas, and vocal pieces. Klein’s works are still performed to this day, and the act of performing them sustains the legacy of this gifted musician and composer whose life was tragically cut short.

Rafael Schachter: Conductor of a Defiant Requiem

Terezin Musicians,

One of the most dramatic instances of art being used as a form of resistance against the Nazis was arranged by a conductor and pianist named Rafael Schachter, also known as Rafi or Rafik. Born in 1905 in Romania to Jewish Czechoslovak parents, he studied piano as a teenager with the esteemed instructor Vilem Kurz, and ultimately relocated to Prague to study composition and conducting at the Prague Conservatory. He later performed in the theater and established his own ensemble which performed chamber and baroque music.

Rafael was described as mild-mannered by those who knew him casually, but when it came to his music, he was passionate, determined and strong-willed. He also was a perfectionist who held incredibly high standards for himself and the members of his ensemble. All of these qualities would prove essential to his work at Terezin. When he was placed on a transport to Terezin in November 1941, Rafael brought with him several musical scores. One of these scores might seem an unusual choice: a requiem, or music for a Catholic funeral Mass, by the Italian composer Verdi. Yet this would be the vehicle for sending a message of defiance to the Nazis.

Defiant Requiem documentary poster
Defiant Requiem documentary poster

At Terezin, Rafael discovered an abandoned piano in the cold dank cellar of one of thebarracks. In the evenings, after a long day of physical labor, Rafael would go down to this cellar and rehearse his music. He invited other inmates to join him, and they would sing popular Czech songs as he accompanied them on the piano. Then Rafael decided to pursue an incredibly ambitious task: to take a chorus of more than one hundred amateur singers and train them to perform Verdi’s Requiem, widely considered one of the most difficult choral works in the world. Furthermore, the lyrics were in Latin and the only copy of the score was the one Rafael brought with him. The lyrics describe a day of judgement where God’s wrath is poured out on sinners, where all the powerful institutions that man has created are crushed to the ground. Rafi envisioned this score as a requiem for the Nazis, as he believed that one day they would face judgement for their crimes. To express this sentiment too explicitly would result in certain death, but Verdi’s Requiem was a way they could express it safely. There is also the hope of deliverance in the Requiem, which resonated with many singers.

After several months, the chorus had not mastered the Requiem to Rafael’s standards, but a pending transport threatened to take away many of the singers. And so, Rafael decided to go ahead and stage a performance of the Requiem for the Terezin inmates. By all accounts, it was a triumphant success, and gave the prisoners precious moments of freedom from the horrors of their surroundings. Tragically, the next morning, nearly half of Rafael’s singers were put on a transport to Auschwitz. But Rafael was determined not to surrender, and he found more singers to replace the ones he had lost. He ended up staging the Requiem about fifteen times, despite losing so many of his singers to transports. The final performance of Verdi’s Requiem conducted by Rafael Schachter occurred during the Red Cross visit to Terezin, at which many Nazis were in attendance. This was a powerful moment where the prisoners could look their captors in the eye and sing of their downfall. Tragically, the Nazis’ downfall failed to come soon enough.

Soon after the performance, the rest of the choir, including Rafael, were placed on a transport to Auschwitz. Most were murdered immediately on arrival. Rafael managed to survive Auschwitz, and several other camps, only to die on a death march in the spring of 1945, shortly before liberation. His legacy is his incredible contribution to the cultural life of Terezin, and most of all, his legendary performance of Verdi’s Requiem.

To learn more of Rafael Schachter and his Terezin singers, I recommend watching the powerful documentary Defiant Requiem, available on Netflix and Amazon. The documentary tells his story and follows a present-day choir which returns to perform the Requiem at Terezin, sending the message that the legacy of Rafik and his singers lives on.

Defiant Requiem Trailer