It is not all for nothing….
by Nicky Gorb
I have became very involved in campaigning, both on-line and in the ‘real world’, to stop Brexit and challenge the rise of racism since the referendum. It has cost me a great deal in terms of my physical and emotional health, as well as time, focus and energy, but I keep on doing it.
In our on-line campaign groups we support each other to keep going and are sad when respected members of our groups leave, usually because they are worn down…. I wrote a version of the following, after one such person announced he was leaving the main campaigning group, The 48%:
“I recently went to hear a distant cousin of mine, Adam Gorb, talk at the Weiner Library, one of the world’s oldest centres for the study of the Holocaust (Shoa) and genocide. Adam is professor of music and composition at the Royal Northern College of music. He spoke about and played the music composed and performed in the Nazi concentration camp Terezen, also known as Theresienstad, in German occupied Czechoslovakia.
The conditions were better there than in other camps, as the Red Cross inspected it to assess if the Nazis were complying with the Geneva Convention. Jewish artists and musicians, in particular, were sent there and made to perform daily in full orchestras. The great children’s opera Brudibar, composed by Hans Krasa, was a product of those intense times. Adam hypothesised that so much music was composed in Terezen at that time as the Jews knew the end was imminent. Following the Red Cross inspection, 98% of all the inhabitants were shipped to Auschwitz-Birkenau, or Treblinka Concentration camps and gassed to death.
While Adam was talking and we listened to the incredible music composed by the musicians from that time, I remembered that the father of my child had once told me that his grandparents and great aunt had been at Terezen. They had sent their two eldest children to England on the kinder transport before being sent to Terezen. They were accepted into the UK on the proviso of foster families being found, which fortunately they were. The great-grandfather had been a GP in Bayreuth, Germany. He had stayed longer than he should have, given the political situation for Jews, as he felt he needed to attend to the health of his fellow Germans.
My son’s father told me while I was listening to the music, that his grandfather would have been on the Council of Jews and in charge of one the blocks in Terezen. He, his wife and their remaining daughter would have listened to the orchestras in Terezen and music composed by their fellow, Jewish prisoners. I was very moved and deeply disturbed by the fact that I was listening to this very same music at a time when current events are making me very worried about the dramatic rise in Xenophobia and hate crimes. Listening to the music also reconnected me to these Jewish ghosts. To their lives and their loss.
My cousin, who I had never met before, had no idea of this story. I told the audience the bizarre connection and said that the terrible suffering and inhumane death could not all be for nothing. We that evening were witnesses to their suffering and their beautiful creative legacies. It lives on… We were re-membering (re-connecting) them, their creations and culture to us. They and their world lives on through us listening, remembering, honouring.
Part of that honouring has to be done through action and discussion to fight to maintain our liberal, open and tolerant society. Though the 20th Century, Europeans and others suffered so much at the hands of evil forces and tyranny, facilitated by manipulative and dangerous propaganda. Brave and critically thinking individuals, groups and organisations are fighting against injustice, xenophobia and hate crimes. We are being called ‘traitors’ and since first writing this, ‘snowflakes’ and ‘saboteurs’. All language to try to dismiss our fight for freedom, equality and openness for ourselves, our European friends and allies and the world!
For me, if the UK gives up our prized membership of the EU and all the good that brings for our nation, continent and people, the loss of life in the First and Second World Wars and the bravery of those who fought for a peaceful Europe and the creation of the EU will have all been for nothing!”
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/terezin.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theresienstadt_concentration_camp
http://www.wienerlibrary.co.uk
http://www.rncm.ac.uk/people/adam-gorb/
Nicola Gorb
14th September 2016, restored 29th March 2017, amended 7th July 2017
Please also read:
The Uniqueness, or otherwise, of History, a 2-min read
by Ferdinand von Prond
