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Music in Terezín: Cultural Continuity in Extreme Conditions
into both operatic and instrumental performances can be drawn from the
memoirs of survivors.
Two instrumental orchestras were active in the ghetto: the ensemble
of Carlo Taube, sometimes referred to as the Municipal Orchestra of the
11
Ghetto, and the string orchestra conducted by Karel Ančerl. Chamber en-
sembles included the Ledeč String Quartet and the Theresienstadt Quar-
tet. The young composer and pianist Gideon Klein, together with members
of the Theresienstadt Quartet, prepared performances of Dvořák’s Piano
Quartet in E-flat major, op. 87, Brahms’s Piano Quartet in C minor, op. 60,
Beethoven’s Piano Trio in E-flat major, op. 70 no. 2, and Schubert’s Piano
Trio in B-flat major, op. 99. 12
Among the most active performers, measured by both frequency of
concerts and the breadth of repertoire, were Renée Gärtner-Geringer
(1908–1944), Bernard Kaff (1905–1944), Alice Herz-Sommer (1903–2014),
and Edith Kraus-Steiner (1913–2013). Amateur musicians also played an im-
portant role: in Ančerl’s chamber orchestra, for instance, they made up as
many as two thirds of the players. The same pattern was evident in opera
13
and choral ensembles, where the majority were amateur singers, while so-
loists moved freely between companies as required. 14
For selected productions, a chamber orchestra was occasionally em-
ployed, as were the services of the architect, stage designer, and costume
designer František Zelenka (1904–1944). Two operas were composed in the
ghetto: Der gläserne Berg by Franz Eugen Klein and Ullmann’s Der Kaiser
ly 1970s, Herrmann’s wife sold most of the sheets from his collection to the Terezín
Memorial (Terezín Memorial, Collections Department).
11 On the activities of both orchestras, see: Milan Kuna, Hudba vzdoru a naděje: Terezín
1941–1945 [Music of Defiance and Hope: Terezín 1941–1945] (Prague: Editio Bären-
reiter Praha, 2000), 92–104. Karel Ančerl later reflected on his activities in the There-
sienstadt ghetto in a short memoir, see: Karel Ančerl, “Music in Terezín,” in Terezín:
1941–1945, eds. František Ehrmann, Otta Heitlinger, and Rudolf Iltis (Prague: Jew-
ish Community in Prague, 1965), 238–41.
12 Excerpts from reviews of Klein’s performances from the period of his studies in
the master class of Vilém Kurz, as well as from his later piano recitals, were pub-
lished by Milan Slavický in the monograph: Gideon Klein: A Fragment of Life and
Work (Prague: Helvetica-Tempora, 1996, 90–4), which appeared simultaneously
with the Czech-language edition of the book.
13 On the significant role of amateurs in the cultural life of the ghetto, see: Gideon
Klein, “Několik poznámek k hudební kultuře Terezína” [“A Few Words about Musi-
cal Culture in Terezín”], published in the third volume of the cultural journal Sešit,
which appeared in Czech in 1943–1944; see also: Slavický, Gideon Klein: A Fragment
of Life and Work, 85–7.
14 Kuna, Hudba vzdoru a naděje, 22–32.

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