Music in the Holocaust: Confronting Life in the Nazi Ghettos and Camps / Edition 1

by Shirli Gilbert

Overview

In Music in the Holocaust Shirli Gilbert provides the first large-scale, critical account in English of the role of music amongst communities imprisoned under Nazism. She documents a wide scope of musical activities, ranging from orchestras and chamber groups to choirs, theatres, communal sing-songs, and cabarets, in some of the most important internment centres in Nazi-occupied Europe, including Auschwitz and the Warsaw and Vilna ghettos. Gilbert is also concerned with exploring the ways in which music—particularly the many songs that were preserved—contribute to our broader understanding of the Holocaust and the experiences of its victims. Music in the Holocaust is, at its core, a social history, taking as its focus the lives of individuals and communities imprisoned under Nazism. Music opens a unique window on to the internal world of those communities, offering insight into how they understood, interpreted, and responded to their experiences at the time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199211180
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	03/01/2007
Series:	Oxford Historical Monographs
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	262
Product dimensions:	8.98(w) x 6.21(h) x 0.66(d)

About the Author

Shirli Gilbert is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Michigan.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Redeeming Music—'Spiritual Resistance' and Beyond1. 'Have compassion, Jewish hearts': Music in the Warsaw Ghetto2. Vilna: Politicians and Partisans3. Songs Confront the Past: Life in the Sachsenhausen4. Fragments of Humanity: Music in AuschwitzEpilogueAppendix: Repertoire Listings

Editorial Reviews

"Gilbert's work is predicated upon a debunking of a commonly held view of the role served by music in the context under discussion. Gilbert's text 'Challenges the widespread and simplistic conception of music as spiritual resistance...in its place, it presents a more complex, multi-layered portrait of what Primo Levi called the 'Grey Zone' that constituted captive life.' It provides much needed information both to researches and interested lay people and is therefore highly recommended." —Notes

From the Publisher