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Music and mourning: Concert marks Kristallnacht

By Marc Shulgold, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published November 9, 2008 at 3 p.m.
Updated November 9, 2008 at 6:05 p.m.

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Nov. 9, 1938. A horrifying, unforgettable day the Germans called Kristallnacht - Night of Crystal. But the world would remember with a more damning description.

Night of Broken Glass.

It was an orgy of destruction by Nazi soldiers and sympathizers aimed at Jewish citizens, their businesses and synagogues that stretched into the following day - a coordinated attack ordered by Joseph Goebbels and triggered by the murder of a German official by a young Polish Jew named Herschel Grynszpan.

After those two November days, "it was not safe to be a Jew in Europe," observed Barbara-Hamilton Primus.

The violist and artistic director of the Colorado Chamber Players maintains a powerful connection to Kristallnacht through direct family ties.

"My grandparents owned Bruder Wilmersdoerfer, a dry goods store in Bayreuth that was smashed," she explained. "My mom left Germany soon after. My grandfather and one sibling escaped. The others, and their families, all died in concentration camps."

To honor their memory, and other victims of this opening salvo in Germany's campaign to exterminate Europe's Jews, Hamilton-Primus and the CCP will play music composed before, during and after the war.

The concerts, "Kristallnacht@70: In Promotion of Tolerance," take place tonight on the University of Denver campus and later this month in the Boulder Public Library.

In assembling the program, Hamilton-Primus approached the Holocaust Awareness Institute at DU's Center for Judaic Studies.

"They put together a DVD of tales from survivors that we'll be projecting on a screen as people arrive," she said. In addition, in-person memories will be shared by two locally based survivors, Osi Sladek and Lisa Jahpa.

The music begins with a string quartet by Mendelssohn, who died nearly a century before the rise of the Nazis. "They banned Mendelssohn (a member of a prominent Jewish family)," Hamilton-Primus noted. "Starting with his music will, I think, help people tap into their emotions."

The Mendelssohn will be followed by Cantillations, for clarinet and viola by the Colorado Springs-based composer Ofer Ben-Amots, and three songs by Hans Krasa, a Czech who died in Auschwitz.

Completing the program is Sparks of Glory by the contemporary composer Paul Schoenfield. That piece utilizes a text drawn from the writings of a World War II Polish journalist named Moshe Prager. The libretto captures observations by Prager on the struggles and moments of courage of Holocaust victims. The music travels from Hassidic melodies to klezmer and jazz. Baritone Patrick Mason will serve as narrator.

The program, Hamilton-Primus noted, will mourn the past as it embraces a sense of hope for the future. In a similar fashion, the enduring sadness of her family's fate was tempered years ago during a trip to Bayreuth, where the violist visited the street of her grandfather's shop.

"I went up to the very spot and there, on the wall, the letters of the name of his store were still visible.

"It's the same thing with the music written by those who perished: It survives. And what better way to prove that it does by performing it?"

shulgoldm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5296

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A musical remembrance

* When and where: 7 p.m. today, Sturm Hall, University of Denver; noon Nov. 18 and 4 p.m. Nov. 23, Boulder Public Library.

* Cost: $18 (DU); Boulder events are free.

* Information: coloradochamberplayers.org

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The costs of Kristallnacht

In Germany, Austria:

* Killed: 91

* Sent to concentration camps: 30,000 (including 8,000 Austrians)

* Jewish businesses and homes destroyed: 7,500

* Synagogues burned or destroyed: Figures from various sources range from 267 to 1,350.

* The fine: German Jews were ordered to pay one billion German marks for cleanup and repairs.

Comments

  • November 10, 2008

    11:04 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    metpjf writes:

    Another aspect which is still in active discussion among survivors and their families with precious little help from the Congress, the courts or the public is that at times like Kristallnacht and thereafter, the Jews were stripped of their belongings and rights which included restitution for billions of dollars (in present dollar terms) of all the premiums they paid to huge German, Austrian, Italian, French, Dutch, Belgium and other insurance companies most of which still are doing business today. When Kristallnacht occurred seventy years ago this week, the massive damage was never covered even though the policies were still in effect.
    In fact these very insurance companies which still exist were able to keep all the billions of dollars in premium payments never to have to pay off until this past decade in which they only decided to pay off a tiny percentage of the valuations of these policies keeping all the other billions for their own use.
    Afraid of the awakening of interest of serious restitution suddenly in 1997, the history since then will show there were able to protect these ill gotten premium funds by a series of maneuvers so that giant insurance firms like Allianz was able to pay survivors back only $12 million which is a tiny percentage of what they will owe and that was deemed acceptable. Generali, an giant Italian insurance company still very much functioning today, has continue to fight against any legal challenges by leaders among survivor groups across the US, to preserve the settlement they wish to have certified of around $300 million instead of what is estimated to be $4.7 billion they owe to survivors and their families.
    All these companies have been fearful of not being given legal peace which means the right to proceed to do business freely without fear of being sued by those survivors and heirs who simply seek justice and moral and legal peace after all their suffering and the lack of respect to pay back what is owed to them at this, one midnight to midnight in their tortured lives today.
    To this day there are no wide protests from the Congress, justice in the courts, nor from the public demanding protection of survivor rights on all this, right now, before its too late.
    Ask your congresspeople, senators and our religious leaders to help right now to have moral and legal peace and fair restitution.
    Go to http://hsf-usa.org/ on the Net and weep or help...you choose. Do not be a bystander, that did nothing good originally, did it?