Search:

The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz : a story of survival / by Sebba, Anne,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Moving and powerful, this is a vivid portrait of the women who came together to form an orchestra in order to survive the horrors of Auschwitz. New York Times bestselling author of Les Parisiennes and That Woman: A Life of Wallis Simpson now examines how a disparate band of young girls struggled to overcome differences and little musical knowledge to please the often-sadistic Nazi overseers. In 1943, German SS officers in charge of Auschwitz-Birkenau ordered that an orchestra be formed among the female prisoners. Almost fifty women and girls from eleven nations were drafted into a band that would play in all weathers marching music to other inmates, forced laborers who left each morning and returned, exhausted and often broken, at the end of the day. While still living amid the harshest of circumstances, with little more than a bowl of soup to eat, they were also made to give weekly concerts for Nazi officers, and individual members were sometimes summoned to give solo performances. For almost all of the musicians chosen to take part, being in the orchestra saved their lives. But at what cost? What role could music play in a death camp? What was the effect on those women who owed their survival to their participation in a Nazi propaganda project? And how did it feel to be forced to provide solace to the perpetrators of a genocide that claimed the lives of their family and friends? In The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz, award-winning historian Anne Sebba traces these tangled questions of deep moral complexity with sensitivity and care. From Alma Rose, the orchestra's main conductor, niece of Gustav Mahler and a formidable pre-war celebrity violinist, to Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, its teenage cellist and last surviving member, Sebba draws on meticulous archival research and exclusive first-hand accounts to tell the full and astonishing story of the orchestra, its members, and the response of other prisoners for the first time"--
Subjects: Auschwitz (Concentration camp); Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz.; Internment camp inmates as musicians.; Women Nazi concentration camp inmates.;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

The child of Auschwitz / by Graham, Lily,author.;
It is 1942 and Eva has boarded a train to Auschwitz. Exhausted from standing up for days, she can think only of her longed-for reunion with her husband Michal, who was sent there months earlier. But when Eva arrives at Auschwitz, there is no sign of Michal and the reality of the camp comes crashing down upon her. As she lies shivering on a thin mattress, her head shaved by rough hands, she hears a whisper. Her bunkmate, Sofie, is reaching out her hand ... As the days pass, they learn each other's dreams - Eva's is that she will find Michal alive, and Sofie's is that she will be reunited with her son Tomas, who has been sent to an orphanage. Sofie sees the chance to engineer one last meeting between Eva and Michal and knows she must take it even if means befriending the enemy ... When Eva realises she is pregnant she fears she has endangered both their lives. But the women are determined to hold on to the last flower of hope in the shadows: their precious children, who they pray will live to tell their story when they no longer can.
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Auschwitz (Concentration camp); Female friendship; Man-woman relationships; Mothers; Pregnant women; Women internment camp inmates;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI