Jewish swing band playing in the German Theresienstadt concentration camp.
The Ghetto Swingers playing in the 1944 propaganda film.Another frame of the film
The Ghetto Swingers were a jazz band organised in the Nazi concentration camp Theresienstadt.[1][2]
The original amateur Czech band playing in the Café of the Ghetto was led by Eric Vogel and Pavel Libensky. Vogel petitioned the Kommandant on January 8, 1943. The personnel of The Ghetto Swingers would be: Dr. Brammer (piano), Dr. Kurt Bauer (percussion), Fr. Goldschmidt (guitar), Fasal (bass), Ing. Vogel (trumpet), Langer (tenor sax and clarinet), and Fr. Mautner (trombone).[3]
When the famous jazz pianist Martin Roman arrived in the camp he was asked to lead. The band appeared in a Theresienstadt cabaret review, known as the Karussell ("Carousel"). The Ghetto Swingers performed over fifty times, most frequently during June and July 1944. The cabarets were organised by Kurt Gerron, who could draw upon the best talent in the camp.[4] Both Roman and Gerron had come to Theresienstadt via the Westerbork transit camp, and qualified for entry to Theresienstadt as "artists".[5]
After the Red Cross visit to the camp, Commandant Karl Rahm instructed Gerron to make a propaganda film. Footage shows the Ghetto Swingers playing on the wooden pavilion built for Karel Ančerl's string orchestra in the town's main square.[6] After the camp closed, the members of the jazz band were sent to Auschwitz.[7] Martin Roman and guitarist Coco Schumann survived. Kurt Gerron and clarinetist Bedřich "Fritz" Weiss did not.
Schumann's 1997 biography[8] includes a photo of the Ghetto Swingers, with Roman, Schumann, Weiss (clarinet and saxophone), Fritz Goldschmidt (guitar), Nettl (accordion), Jetti Kantor and Ratner (violin), Josef Taussig (trombone)[9] and others; Kohn, Chokkes, and Erich Vogel (trumpet), Donde (tenor saxophone), Pavel Libensky (double bass), and Fredy Haber (tenor).[10] Some of the players overlapped with the Jazz-Quintet-Weiss.
^Ruth Elias Triumph of Hope: From Theresienstadt and Auschwitz to Israel 1999 p. 288 "Finally, we arrived home — home in the Theresienstadt ghetto. We were alive. Had they counted us? ... there was always some form of entertainment, usually light popular music performed by singers and a jazz band, the Ghetto Swingers."
^Brown, Kellie D. (2020). The sound of hope: Music as solace, resistance and salvation during the holocaust and world war II. McFarland. pp. 90–91. ISBN 978-1-4766-7056-0.
^Joža Karas Music in Terezín 1941–1945 1985 p. 151
^Michael Balfour – Theatre and war, 1933–1945: performance in extremis 2001 p. 154
^Michael H. Kater Different drummers: jazz in the culture of Nazi Germany 1991 "A comfortable stay in Terezín was never guaranteed; periodically, transports were sent to Auschwitz, and they invariably consisted of the sick and elderly. p. 83 Roman and Gerron both qualified for entry into this camp as "artists".
^Legacies of silence: the visual arts and the Holocaust memory p. 60 Glenn Sujo, Imperial War Museum (Great Britain) – 2001 "The renowned film producer and cabaret artist Kurt Gerron, interned in Theresienstadt, was a significant creative ... and is followed by footage of Martin Roman's jazz ensemble, the 'Ghetto Swingers', playing in the town's main square"
^Dinah Shelton Encyclopedia of genocide and crimes against humanity 2005 "In the realm of jazz and popular music, Martin Roman led the Ghetto Swingers. ... Within a month most of Theresienstadt's cultural establishment, including Gerron and Haas, were deported to the gas chambers of Auschwitz. "
^Coco Schumann: der Ghetto-Swinger : eine Jazzlegende erzählt Coco Schumann, Max Christian Graeff, Michaela Haas – 1997
^„Svêdectvi Josefa Taussiga" (Das Zeugnis von Josef Taussig)
^Joža Karas Music in Terezín, 1941–1945 p. 151 1990 "percussion; and Franta Goldschmidt was the guitarist, who unfortunately had to play on a very inferior instrument. Shortly after the establishment of the "café," on January 8, 1943. An engineer and amateur trumpet player, Erich Vogel.
The GhettoSwingers were a jazz band organised in the Nazi concentration camp Theresienstadt. The original amateur Czech band playing in the Café of the...
musicians. Karl Fischer, a Moravian cantor, led various choirs. The GhettoSwingers performed jazz music, and Viktor Ullmann composed more than 20 works...
German jazz musician and Holocaust survivor. He became a member of the GhettoSwingers while transported to Theresienstadt at the age of nineteen. In the...
was finished, Gerron and members of the Jazz pianist Martin Roman's GhettoSwingers were deported on the camp's final train transport to Auschwitz, on...
jazz school in the Jewish ghetto of that city. In Theresienstadt concentration camp he played with Martin Roman's GhettoSwingers and Fritz Weiss's Jazz-Quintet-Weiss...
Pirates Stilyagi, a Soviet youth subculture Counterculture Beatnik GhettoSwingers "The History of Swing Music". Vintage People. 2007. Archived from the...
of the jazz band GhettoSwingers. Artist and art teacher Friedl Dicker-Brandeis created drawing classes for children in the ghetto, among whom were Hana...
coerced the actor Kurt Gerron to direct. Roman appeared leading his GhettoSwingers. When the filming was over Roman and Gerron were sent to Auschwitz...
leader and arranger of the Theresienstadt Dixieland ensemble called GhettoSwingers. Both bands collaborated in various performances and the number of...
the leading representatives of Czech theatre and cabaret in the Terezin ghetto. Following is a range from his personal papers: anecdotes, aphorisms and...
Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1943, played by a band known as the GhettoSwingers. After World War II, it was performed by jazz musicians such as Dave...
after the war. Lord Haw Haw Tokyo Rose Degenerate art Degenerate music GhettoSwingers – Jewish swing band playing in the German Theresienstadt concentration...
(RandomHouse/Goldmann, 2017), Dakini Power (Shambhala, 2013) and co-author of The Ghetto-Swinger (1996). She has hosted talkshows and political as well as cultural broadcasts...
Antonín (November 2011). "Jazz pod diktaturou moci. XI. Protektorát a GhettoSwingers" (in Czech). Hudební rozhledy. Retrieved 27 April 2012. Gössel, Gabriel...
for SS officers and during executions in Auschwitz as part of the "GhettoSwingers".[citation needed] In the postwar period, and after nearly 20 years...
the Nazis (1985). It included the story of the Kille Dillers and the GhettoSwingers, two bands that played in concentration camps. He also translated the...
Bohländer, Reclams Jazzführer Stuttgart 1970 Zwerin, Mike (2000). "The GhettoSwingers". Swing Under the Nazis: Jazz as a Metaphor for Freedom. Cooper Square...
20 March 2014. Retrieved 20 November 2017. Zwerin, Mike (2000). The GhettoSwingers. Cooper Square Press. pp. 17–30. ISBN 978-1-46-173197-9. {{cite book}}:...
attention to music and formed his first band, Joe Bataan and the Latin Swingers. Bataan was influenced by two musical styles: the Latin boogaloo and African...
2011. Kirshner, Sheldon (August 19, 2009). "Buildings in the former Lodz Ghetto still stand". Canadian Jewish News. Archived from the original on October...
of their individual stereotypes. In the first one, the three went to the ghetto, where B.G. ended up dressed like a pimp. In the second one, they all went...
(1979) Death Rage (1976) No Way Out (1973) The Sell-Out (1976) Hay Country Swingers (1971) Teenage Hitchhikers (1975) Hot Summer in the City (1976) Crack House...
Bassnectar, The Crystal Method, Calvin Harris Sunday: Daniel Brandão, Kings of Swingers, Killer on the Dancefloor, Pretty Lights, Tinie Tempah, Skrillex, Racionais...
local shops. These notes were also given with invitations to a Santa's Ghetto exhibition by Pictures on Walls. The individual notes have since been selling...
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