HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL CONCERTS
VOICES OF THE HOLOCAUST – VOICES OF THE RESISTANCE
International Voice of Justice has produced Holocaust Memorial Concerts featuring the work: “Voices of the Holocaust”, a musical drama by Dr. Martha Smith, music: Marilee Eckert, principal composer and Martha and Haakon Smith, assistant composers. The work presents monologues telling the stories of survivors and victims, along with songs related to their lives. Following its premiere in New York City in 1997, the work has been presented in nations across Europe: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, France, Germany, Romania and most recently in Sept. 2023 in Bratislava, Slovakia with Hilaris Orchestra in the Konvergencie International Chamber Music Festival.
Elie Wiesel’s Song:
Martha Smith, soprano,
Haakon Smith, Piano
Anne Frank’s Song:
Martha Smith, soprano,
Haakon Smith, Piano
The stories include actual accounts of true experiences of:
- Elie Wiesel’s Cry: Survivor of Auschwitz who became a leading spokesman for the remembrance of the Holocaust
- Anne Frank’s Song: A young girl whose diary was found after the war. Her life and tragic death in Auschwitz have touched the hearts of people across the world.
- Rose’s Joy: The story of the survival and restoration of the Constan family after the horrors of life in a concentration camp
- Marion’s Song: The daughter of Rose Constan, Marion remembers as a youth the agony of that time of internment
- Herbert’s Song: The story of Herbert Lichtenstein, a survivor of Buchenwald, Bielefeld, Auschwitz and Theresienstadt Camps
- Ushie’s Children: The wife of Herbert, Ushie was raped by guards in Theresienstadt and the forced-sterilized
- The Arons and the St. Louis: Newly-weds Alfed and Sofi Aron fled Germany for refuge in Cuba on the ship the St. Louis with nearly 1000 Jewish refugees. However, most were rejected after the Gestapo preceded the ship and bribed the Cubans to reject the desperate refugees.
- Doris Shafran’s Song: Doris was taken with her mother in a deportation train for a three day journey from Czechoslovakia to Auschwitz. In the inspection lines they were forced to separate and Doris never saw her mother again.
- Rachmiel’s Song: Rachmiel, a Chasidic rabbi, survived one impossible situation after another. His faith in God carried him through.
- Corrie Ten Boom’s Song: A remembrance of the great leader of the resistance who, together with her family, gave all to help Jewish victims flee the Nazis.
- G-d’s Sorrow: A recounting of the tragedy of the Holocaust as a prayer and the call to the return to the nation of Israel, the eternal home of the Jewish people.