Music and the Holocaust

Musical works of diverse origin and style were performed and composed during the Nazi period. The Nazi Party itself made widespread use of music at rallies and public events, particularly marching music and rousing propaganda songs.

In many of the ghettos and camps that were established across Nazi-occupied Europe between 1933 and 1945, prisoners created and performed a wide range of new and existing music, particularly songs. Jewish inmates in the ghettos often wrote new Yiddish songs based on well-known melodies.

Prisoners in the concentration and death camps, including tens of thousands of non-Jewish political, ‘asocial’, and religious prisoners, also wrote songs describing their experiences and hopes for an end to the Nazi regime.

In the ‘model ghetto’ Theresienstadt, an exceptional case, some of Europe’s most promising young composers were granted a temporary reprieve to compose more extended musical works, before they too became victims of the ‘Final Solution’.