Lost Music of Auschwitz, The (2025)

[bunniefuu]

"The following programme contains

scenes which some viewers may find

distressing."

(RAIN PATTERS)

POLLACK: Myself and all the others

realised...

this is a place

where...

hate... and terror

were beyond anything we had seen.

We were so fearful.

Constant fear.

We were terrified.

(ORCHESTRAL MUSIC BUILDS)

GEYER: Auschwitz was

the largest death camp

the world has ever seen.

Around 1.1 million people

perished here.

Of those, one million were Jewish,

70,000 were Polish,

and 21,000 were Romani

and Sinti people.

Auschwitz was also home

to at least six orchestras,

formed of prisoners

and commissioned by the Nazis.

This music was part

of the infrastructure of the camp.

Music was weaponised.

I'm a classical composer

and conductor.

For the last eight years,

I've been piecing together

the fragments

of the music manuscripts

that remain.

Hidden in the notes,

there are many examples

of where musicians rebelled...

with secret performances

and weaving forbidden melodies

into concerts.

All of these stories

are very special.

I've been trying to understand

what the music would have

sounded like in Auschwitz

so that we can finally

hear this music,

in some cases,

for the first time in 80 years.

EDITH: We were standing outside

in front of that gate,

and there was that famous music

which used to play in Auschwitz.

Practically everybody cried,

we never cried.

You suddenly remembered,

"Oh, there was a world

which we used to know."

MOZART:

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik Mvt.1

(MUSIC FADES, ENDS)

I've been to Auschwitz ten times,

and on each trip,

here for several days.

Hiya, Leo.

Good to see you again.

Please come in.

Thank you.

'So, a very long time.'

Please sit down.

Thank you.

The collection department

in Auschwitz houses

all kinds of different artefacts

that relate to the camp's existence,

and this includes

artworks, musical instruments,

and also music manuscripts.

Thank you very much, Jan, thank you.

I first came to the collections

department eight years ago

and I had a conversation

with one of the archivists,

and he mentioned to me

in a somewhat offhand way

that there were

some music manuscripts

in the collections department.

I couldn't believe

that such a thing existed.

This is an example

of one of the parts in the archive,

and we can see it's very damaged

and the title is missing,

the instrument is missing,

but this is one of the pieces

of the jigsaw.

And I know because

of the range of the part

that this is a violin two part.

None of these manuscripts

are complete,

so the challenge

for me as a composer

is to try and,

authentically as possible,

complete the gaps.

It becomes even more complicated

to make the arrangements

because you didn't have

the same players day in

and day out because tragically

the musicians were dying.

And so I've had to research

testimonies, refer to photos,

to try and understand

exactly who was there at that time

to get to the sound

as purely as possible.

Following my conversations

with survivors,

one of the most

important things for them

is that we inherit the truth.

Music is an abstract artform,

and therefore music can

speak beyond words.

And with something so enormous

and of such gravity

as the Holocaust,

actually music is helpful, I think,

i-in a way in which

we can understand and deal with it.

(BELL RINGING DISTANTLY)

HORNICK: People that had been locked

up in those terrible carriages

were gasping for air.

Suddenly we heard

this terrible clinking

and they...

took off the chains,

and the doors opened.

Well, the sight that greeted us

was beyond anybody's imagination.

Dogs were barking viciously,

soldiers marching up and down

with g*ns on their shoulders,

and there was just

a general sense of panic.

(BELL RINGING DISTANTLY)

When transport arrived,

the symphony orchestra was playing.

I saw them playing when we arrived,

and I couldn't imagine, I never

heard playing so beautifully,

because the place where I come from,

there was no symphony orchestra.

So, when such a beautiful music,

well, you don't think

of something bad.

GEYER: The women's orchestra

was based in the largest camp,

Auschwitz II Birkenau...

in barracks that were

next to the main railway

where most people arrived.

They often performed

in view of the railway

and the nearby crematoria.

We know from survivor testimonies

that Eine kleine Nachtmusik

by Mozart

was one of the pieces that

the women's orchestra performed.

I've managed to research

what instruments were available

at the time,

and that comprises

of a very unbalanced orchestra

of very bizarre instruments,

and this creates a very,

very distinctive sound.

MOZART:

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik Mvt.1

It's difficult to imagine

a more macabre setting

for music-making.

(MUSIC CONCLUDES)

HORNICK: Mothers and children

were taken to the left.

We did look back

and we saw our mother.

She had a spotted scarf on her head

and we waved to her.

We didn't see our little brothers

because he was, um...

um, they were small

and in the crowd they were lost.

We were being...

directed through...

the main gate.

The smell was terrible,

and we didn't know what it was.

And this sort of grey,

greasy ash falling down.

We were taken in to block 14...

and we were crying,

my sister and I,

and there was a lady there

who was fed up with us crying.

Well, she must have been

already seasoned,

she'd been there a while.

She said, "Don't be stupid,

you aren't going to see your mother.

Can you see that smoke coming up

and all that dirty ash

falling around us?

That's where your mother's gone."

PERL: Marching was a completely

daily event.

But when you say marching,

you visualise a nice

marching there but...

but, uh...

you're talking about crawling along

rather than marching.

And quite a marching out,

uh, quite often...

it wasn't unusual for people

never to return back.

ROSENBURG:

Normally when you went out to work,

there was a 50-piece orchestra

playing and you were

marching to that.

And, uh...

when you came back,

(SINGS)Bur-um-pum-pum-pum-pum

pum-pur-um, pum-pu-pum,

pu-pu-rum, bum-bu-bum, bum-bu-bum.

And you'd march,

no matter how tired you were.

As it came before the gate,

it was "Achtung, attention,

straighten out your lines,

count them."

And the kapot would march and yell,

commander number so-and-so,

54 people, 75 people,

and marching right through

and being counted.

We knew we were gonna march out,

we heard music,

"OK, well we're going to work again,

what's gonna happen today?

Will I ever get back?"

I thought, "Hell is here

and there they're making music.

Why, why?"

And that's how it was.

Arbeitslager Marsch

by Henryk Krol is the only

example that we have of a march

written by a prisoner.

And the story of this piece

was that he wrote it in Auschwitz,

and it was played many,

many times when it was there.

A fellow prisoner was able

to take the music from Auschwitz

and return it to Henryk Krol

after the w*r.

Today, we don't actually have

the full score, but I've managed

to research what instruments

were available at that time,

such as accordion and saxophone,

which we wouldn't usually

expect in an orchestra.

It feels to me that there is

a hidden message to this music,

and we can tell that from

the dissonance in the melodic lines

and the countermelodies,

as well as a prolonged passage

in the minor key.

This marching music

is very difficult

because we know

that this was the backdrop

to really unimaginable horrors.

(MUSIC FADES TO BACKGROUND)

KROL: It was bearable in the morning

when the prisoners still marched

somewhat normal.

But in the afternoon,

the sight was horrific.

As the concert master, I stood

at the very edge of the orchestra,

so I had the closest view

of the prisoners passing by.

I will never forget

the day I had to watch

as the body of my friend

was carried in.

Two prisoners were carrying him,

one at the front

and one at the back,

and the ways his limbs hang down

only intensified

the horror of the spectacle.

("ARBEITSLAGER MARSCH" CONTINUES)

JUHN: When we came back from work,

we had to march past

the orchestra

which was playing, and...

people that were...

beaten to death or shot

were...

before the orchestra, displayed.

Dead people propped up on chairs.

We had to march past,

to take our hats off

and look at them.

("ARBEITSLAGER MARSCH" CONTINUES)

(MUSIC SOFTENS)

(MUSIC FADES, ENDS)

(BIRDSONG)

I was 12 years and three months old.

We never had the luxury

of even...

thinking more than one day ahead.

They dehumanised us.

We're not humans anymore.

We went to this little room

and there was a lady there.

She says, "You say you play music?"

I said, "Yes, the accordion."

She says, "Here, play something,"

she gave me an accordion.

I knew everything by heart,

so I play for her

and she says, "Good."

They said that

the Kommandant decided

to make an orchestra.

I say, "An orchestra here?"

Everybody who was on a special work,

like kitchen or musician

or people who work cleaning up,

um, then they're...

they were all leaving separately

from the other one,

and they had all more than we had.

They all had

a little bit better of food.

WONTOR-CICHY: To stay healthy,

to stay clean,

to stay not exhausted,

was much easier in the orchestra

comparing to the other units.

But to be part of the orchestra,

uh, was not an easy, uh, story.

They have to take the exam;

basically play

in front of the prisoner

who was appointed to be

their conductor,

and they have to play, uh...

play well.

A Romani violinist,

he played the fiddle beautifully

without knowing

how to read music at all;

a man with perfect pitch.

I was present when his

transport arrived.

When he was stripped naked,

he cried and begs to be allowed

to keep his violin.

He did not want to part with it

under any circumstances.

He gave an extraordinary

demonstration of his ability.

Completely naked,

he played as if in a trance,

wringing sobbing tones

from the fiddle.

This decided his immediate

inclusion in the camp orchestra.

For Roma people,

music and dance and family

are probably the...

the three most important things.

Taking his violin and his music

was just like taking his life.

This composition, it's written

in memory of Jakub Segar,

who was, just like myself,

an Eastern European violinist,

uh, violinist and musician

of, uh, Roma ethnicity.

We are standing at

the Alte Judenrampe.

This must probably have been

the exact point

where he and other victims

got off from the train.

The pain of... of his

can be felt in the air, I think.

GEYER: Jakub Segar was one of

the few Romani musicians

in the Auschwitz 1 Orchestra,

and I think the story

of his recruitment is astonishing.

He was clearly one of the most

gifted violinists,

with the ability

to hear a melody once

and play it back perfectly.

And so in his honour,

I've written this solo violin piece,

drawing on Romani

musical traditions.

This violin is an...

extremely special violin

because, uh...

this violin was here in-in Auschwitz

in the... in the camp

and played by

one of the survivors

who was here in Auschwitz.

(MUSIC CONCLUDES)

(BIRD CHIRPING)

MEYER: There were certain moments

where we had to entertain the SS.

We played popular tunes

and we played potpourris,

we played waltzes, tangos.

Either they brought them from home

and said could you play that for us,

and we would,

or they were popular tunes

and we knew that they liked it.

The Nazis was going to

come and visit us.

They come to have a rest after

the k*lling that they did,

they're gonna have some music.

MAYER: Believe me, it was

a fantastic, first class orchestra.

It was part of their, um...

enjoyment, the German's enjoyment,

to be sarcastic, to uh,

to give us extra pain, I-I felt.

GEYER: "Nie w*r Musik so shon" or

"Never Has Music Been So Beautiful"

was requested by SS soldiers

in Auschwitz.

This piece is an example

of one of the foxtrots

popular in n*zi Germany.

To try and understand

the full picture of this arrangement

that was made in Auschwitz,

requires quite a lot

of musical detective work.

As well as referring to

the manuscripts in the archive,

I also referenced recordings

made in n*zi Germany

to recompose the missing gaps.

I think this piece is

the most difficult for us

as musicians to perform,

because...

it's in many ways a beautiful

piece of music, it's luscious.

We are playing in a style

similar to that in n*zi Germany,

so that has this

sweet-sounding vibrato,

the sliding in the strings.

But we have to remember

that this was a piece

that was performed

for the SS on demand,

and many, many people

did find this horrific at the time.

CASIROLI: Nie w*r Musik So Shon

(MUSIC FADES TO BACKGROUND)

The SS men were

sitting there, you know,

comfortably,

drinking their beers or whatever,

and amusing themselves.

Bottles of beer were rolled in

one after the other.

The corks from bottles of champagne

shot into the air with a bang,

and sausage and roast chicken

steamed on the trays.

MARKSTEIN: They loved the music.

And I was standing there

and I thought to myself

once the sun was shining...

and I said, "Where am I?

What's happening to us?

Where is God?

Where is God? Where was this?

Where is the whole world?

Nobody cares about us,

nobody gives a damn what is...

what is happening here?"

("NIE w*r MUSIK SO SHON" CONTINUES)

(MUSIC FADES, ENDS)

(CLOCK TICKING)

We were so fearful.

We were so obedient.

They're-They're just... (SIGHS)

fr-frightening...

frightening, some sort of...

some sort of dangerous...

wild and-and hateful people.

HORNICK: A miracle happened.

My mother's old assistant,

two older cousins,

were in block 16.

And she came to find us,

and um, we were terribly distressed,

and she managed to exchange

with another two people.

I mean, to do that,

you could be whipped to death,

but she managed to exchange us

to her block,

and really took care of us.

So, we were so very lucky.

I came out with my life.

To what do I owe this?

For me, there is no doubt

that I owe this to an unending

series of miracles.

I was helped in this by music,

and so many times I had been told

that one could not survive by music.

One evening,

I found lying on the ground

a crumpled and greasy piece of paper

covered with writing

that attracted my attention.

It smelled of herring

and God only knows what else,

but it was music.

Only the melody,

written by hand but very legibly,

without harmonisation,

without accompaniment.

The title at the top read

"Three Warsaw Polonaises

of the 18th Century"

Author: "Anonymous."

On the greasy piece of paper

that Szymon Laks found

was just a single melodic line,

and so Laks made the decision

to then orchestrate that

for quartet.

Crucially, he didn't say

what quartet he wrote it for.

When I looked at

the instruments that I know

were available to Laks at that time,

for me it felt like a violin,

accordion, a clarinet,

and double bass seemed the most

appropriate instruments

to bring out

the nature of the music.

Given that this piece

was an emphatic

presentation of Polish music,

it would have been forbidden,

which is why we know

that Szymon Laks

performed this piece secretly.

SZYMON LAKS:

Warsaw Polonaise No.2

(MUSIC CONCLUDES)

Nobody survived

without luck, nobody.

But not everybody

that had luck survived.

Well, I come from a family of 11

and the only one that survived

was me and my brother, Alec.

Alec was two years older than me,

and I thank God

that without him being there,

I-I don't think

I would have survived.

Most people survived in pairs...

and if they didn't have

a brother or a sister,

they would find a friend

to hang on to.

'Cause when you are in

that sort of dire... position,

you try to live for each other.

MARKSTEIN: The crematorium

worked full speed,

day and night.

Thick smoke with flames

that you could see and the smell,

of burning human flesh.

And it was so nauseating.

We had it under our skin.

We couldn't get rid of it,

not day and not night, never.

HORNICK: We came with the last

transport of the Hungarian Jews,

and those crematoria

were going day and night

on those transports.

Himmler, um, wanted...

as many burned as possible,

and thousands...

thousands were burned in a day.

The gas chambers were very

close to the orchestra.

You see, where we were,

say if you walk

a block or two blocks at the most,

the gas chambers were there,

and we could see them.

The women's orchestra performed

very close to the crematorium.

Chopin's Tristesse Etude

or Sadness Etude

was a arrangement

that was made by Alma Rose,

the conductor of the

women's orchestra.

There are no manuscripts

that survived

from the women's orchestra,

but one of the violinists remembered

intrinsic details of this

performance and arrangement,

and I've been able to refer to her

notes about this to the letter.

This piece was performed

in the women's barracks

where they both rehearsed and lived,

and they performed

this piece secretly

and very much for themselves.

I'm Jewish and, uh,

most of my family died in Auschwitz.

My, uh, great grandfather

and his wife

and their two children,

um, they fled Belgium in 1940,

which is why I'm here. Um, but...

the eight brothers and sisters

on either side,

uh, didn't leave,

and they were taken away

by the Nazis

and taken to Auschwitz.

They all died.

Um, we've got photos at home

of little cousins,

and knowing that-that

they didn't make it.

The song is about, um...

a woman who has a song within her,

a beautiful song,

but then at the end she says,

but I don't want it

in me anymore, so...

my interpretation is that

she wants to be able

to express herself,

she wants to be able to perform it

and sing it,

or for somebody to sing it.

But she can't express herself,

uh, because...

she's in Auschwitz.

I'm singing this piece

for all the people

that didn't survive Auschwitz,

including Alma Rose,

who wrote the piece.

(ORCHESTRAL MUSIC BEGINS)

(SINGS IN GERMAN)

(MUSIC CONCLUDES)

(LEAVES RUSTLE GENTLY)

PERL: My brother, David,

he was the eldest.

He was old enough,

he was 22-years-old,

and he was old enough

to go into the Sondercommando.

The Sondercommando are the people

who worked in the crematoria,

and they were kept separate to us.

The only way we knew

that he was there is that we were...

we had a parcel of food

thrown over the...

for the wire, the barbed wires,

and after a while it stopped.

And we never-never

heard or seen him since.

But we found out that usually

they themselves used to be, uh,

liq-liquidated after

three or four weeks.

The horror is just unimaginable.

WONTOR-CICHY: Sondercommando

was a very special unit.

Young, healthy, most were Jewish.

They have to take the corpses

of the people m*rder*d

in the gas chamber

and carry them to crematorias,

carry them for burning.

And they wanted to send

a message outside

to try to inform the world

about the crime committed.

A camera was smuggled

into this very close area

of Sondercommando...

and a few photographs were taken.

One of the photo

they decided to take

is a little field

and some people standing;

standing around something

what is on the ground:

corpses of people that were m*rder*d

a few minutes before.

And they cannot

be burned in crematorium

because the crematorium

is either damaged

or is just too small

to burn all the bodies

of the people m*rder*d

in the gas chamber

within this period of time.

(UNEASY TONE)

The one thing I can never,

ever forget is...

looking back

and waving at our mother.

Yeah.

I will never forget how,

after the memorable

mass execution of the prisoners

from the Silesian transport,

which shook the entire camp,

Kopycinski sat down at the piano

and played Chopin's

Revolutionary Etude.

It was summer, in the afternoon,

the windows of the music hall

were wide open,

and the music could be heard

not only throughout the camp,

but also in the SS-occupied

buildings across the wire.

It took extraordinary courage

to do something like that.

The piece Adam Kopycinski played

was Chopin's Revolutionary Etude,

and you can understand why

he made that decision.

That particular piece has been

associated with Polish resistance

for many years before that point.

(MUSIC CONCLUDES)

Music does have the ability

to speak beyond specific meaning,

and therefore

music can be very valuable

as a way in

to try and engage with the Holocaust

and find the right

emotion and feelings.

This is one of the most

delicate manuscripts.

It's written in faded pencil.

And tucked inside... these pages

we will find something

very special.

This was the manuscript

that set me on this path

eight years ago.

This is an unsigned,

unfinished manuscript.

When I first saw it,

I had goosebumps

down the back of my neck,

because the handwriting

is the exact same as mine.

And so I felt it was

my duty to finish it.

We can tell it's a sketch

because we can see

these rubbings out,

which shows that our composer

changed his mind as he was writing.

Importantly, also here at the end,

there's no double bar line,

it's just a normal bar,

which means that the piece

is not finished.

It is in fact a short score

for a much larger instrumentation.

A sketch for something bigger.

The title, at least we think,

is "Daremne Zale,"

and this is Polish

for "Futile Regrets."

This piece has been haunting me

for eight years...

because I still

don't know who it's by,

and the only clue...

is the handwriting itself.

(HUMS MELODY)

(CONTINUES HUMMING MELODY)

(HUMMING BEGINS TO FADE)

(HUMMING FADES, ENDS)

(LEAVES RUSTLE)

POLLACK:

The Allied Forces were coming!

And lo and behold...

I feel a pair of hands...

a gentle pair of hands...

lifting me up...

and putting me in

a waiting ambulance.

And it was warm...

with gentle voices.

If they spoke just German, no.

They spoke and said...

"Hold on."

I remember it so clearly.

The fact that we were given a dress

and a coat

and shoes,

that was a ray of hope

that we might survive...

by, um... by leaving Auschwitz.

(BIRDS CHIRPING)

We'd pass for the last time

by the buildings

we have walked past daily for years,

and suddenly,

somewhere ahead a song rises;

a Polish song of course,

light-hearted and carefree.

And our dread of the guards fades.

Our sorrows melt away.

At Katowice Station,

the air echoed with a bugle call

from St. Mary's Tower,

and Polish songs played

by the Auschwitz Orchestra,

which was allowed to bring

their instruments.

Placed in a single train car,

they played a farewell.

(SPEAKS POLISH)

(MUSIC CONCLUDES)

I'm trying to find out

who wrote the unfinished

musical sketch "Daremne Zale."

When I found it

in the Auschwitz archives,

it was tucked into

the first part of a 19th century

Polish operetta that had been

copied out by hand.

(SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY)

Just over there, straight.

I eventually tracked down

the other half of the operetta

in the Polish National Library,

and more importantly,

the name of the copyist,

Mieczyslaw Krzynski.

We know from

Krzynski's prisoner number

that he arrived in Auschwitz

on the 17th of April 1942.

Krzynski was the deputy conductor

of the Auschwitz 1 Orchestra,

so not only was he

making arrangements,

but he was also copying the various

parts for all the players.

(SPEAKS POLISH)

My hunch is that Krzynski

wrote Daremne Zale,

but to know for sure,

I need to compare the writing

on the two manuscripts.

So, this is the...

the name of the operetta itself.

All we need now is the signature.

And here it is.

1935, so that's the date

this was written,

before the w*r,

but most importantly,

most interestingly, the signature:

"M. K."

And that stands for

Mieczyslaw Krzynski.

So, one of the ways we can tell

who the author is from a manuscript

is the treble clef.

And every composer writes

their treble clef differently.

So, if we compare these

to our unsigned and unfinished

composition sketch...

there's a very striking similarity

between the two.

So, we can see that it has the same

swivel shape here,

and also the top

of the treble clef here

doesn't have the circle

that we would expect to see.

The other aspect to look at is

the notes themselves.

So, in many cases, such as here,

we can see that

our composer has written

the notehead first,

and then somewhat

hurriedly afterwards

has drawn the stem

and then the bean.

And again this matches exactly

with that of the composition sketch

in the archive.

The similarity is just so striking

that it tells us that this

really must be by the same hand.

My brother, Mieczyslaw Krzynski,

was a professor of music

and a composer

who wrote and composed

the missing pieces

for the various instruments

that were not available.

He played a tuba

in the brass and the violin

in the string orchestra.

I think the reason why

Mieczyslaw Krzynski

didn't finish his piece

was because he couldn't perform it.

It is a piece that is

deeply sorrowful,

and I can't imagine any context

in which that

would have been allowed.

That piece was written

for himself, I think,

and finally,

we are giving voice to him.

And I can only hope that...

he's pleased with what I've done.

(ORCHESTRAL MUSIC BEGINS SOFTLY)

(ORCHESTRAL MUSIC CONCLUDES)

PERL: Afterwards...

I think we were scared.

Scared to face reality.

I think, my whole life,

all I wanted to do

is go through life

without getting any punishment.

I'd try not to look at people,

I'd try not to ask questions.

All of us had problems...

and life had a different meaning.

Entirely different meaning.

When I go round

and talk about my experiences,

it's painful,

but I feel as though...

that humanity has got to learn,

and if humanity doesn't learn,

it will happen again

and again and again.

It might come

in a different overcoat,

but one has to be very careful.

(BIRDSONG)

HORNICK: So, I find great...

comfort when I come out here.

Whatever I have on my mind,

I come out into the garden.

It's just lovely.

It is very, very important

that, uh, people should hear

and, um, that is the reason at 95

I am still willing

to go and talk to young people,

because they all tell me

it's different

to hear our, uh,

testimonies of survivors.

I just feel very lucky to have

come out alive, out of there,

and reasonably sane, I think.

(LAUGHS)

(CLOCK TICKING)

They took me

and a few others

who so managed to survive...

to Sweden...

for our recovery.

And that was...

magic.

And every night

we listened to music,

and I interpreted that music...

for my life.

How the tragedy

destroyed everyone

in my family;

more than 50 members I lost.

And every night...

that was our spiritual recovery.

That there is...

perhaps beauty in the world.

Perhaps.