My article in el Pais this morning was given a slightly inflammatory headline, perhaps lost in translation. I had written that the orchestra has been exposed by three independent historians as ‘willing instruments of a murderous regime’.
On second thoughts, considering the terrible fate of the 13 musicians it expelled 75 years ago and the orchestra’s prolonged cover-up of its complicity in Nazi outrages, I’m happy with the terror headline in el Pais. What happened to Jews and dissidents in Vienna during the Anschluss in March 1938 and again during Kristallnacht in November that year was nothing less than state-organised terror.
Here, for Spanish readers is the el Pais essay. I will write another later in the week.
Also worth reading is an in-depth report from the Guardian.
If you want to read a wonderful article about Hugo Burghauser, president of the Vienna Philharmonic until 1938, here is a link:
http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-antisemitism&month=9910&week=&msg=ecnZnYdggnpMZmF5ndZjzQ&user=&pw=
Thank you for this link Jose; what a great tribute………
I also enjoyed the story.
Interesting article. There is also a book which is a collection of musicians’ portraits (in words, not in pictures), one chapter of which is about Burghauser, at the time when he lived in NY as a retiree but still occasionally helped out at the Met. Incidentally, it describes a day in his life when he goes in to play the same work – Elektra. Unfortunately, I simply can’t remember the title of the book. It was written in English, but that’s all I can remember. Maybe someone else knows which book I am talking about?
Burghauser also wrote his memoirs which I read many, many years ago. I don’t think the book is available in English though: “Philharmonische Begegnungen: Erinnerungen eines Wiener Philharmonikers”.
Burghauser obviously was a very courageous and principled person. But men and women of that stature are, unfortunately, very rare. I suspect few if any of the many commentators here who have celebrated their righteous moral outrage from the safety of their computer keyboards over the past few days when we discussed this subject are, in real life, people of such stature and courage.
The article also touches on something which a lot of people don’t seem to know about: how enormously difficult it often was for “normal” people (meaning people who weren’t rich and famous) to simply emigrate even if they wanted. And how little countries like England and France did to help those who were opposed to or persecuted by the Nazi regime get out – on the contrary, they often made things even more difficult for the refugees. When the war broke out, the British even deported German and Austrian Jews back to Germany – after all, they were “enemy aliens”!
This is also illustrated in another book which is unfortunately not available in English either: “Saitensprünge: Erinnerungen eines Kosmopoliten wider Willen” by Hellmut Stern who was born in Berlin in 1928 into a Jewish family which desperately tried to get out for years – without success, as they weren’t rich and famous. They finally got their chance in 1938 when they obtained visas to go to Manchuria, of all places. On the way there, they were also treated as second class human beings by the British. When their ship docked in British ports like in India (remember, back then that was still a British colony), non-Jewish Germans were allowed to leave the ship and move around freely – but the Germans with the big J in the passport had to stay on board.
The Sterns eventually made their way to Harbin in Manchuria, survived the war there under harrowing conditions, later went to Israel where Hellmut Stern played in the Israel Philharmonic, then the US where he played in Rochester and Chicago, and then finally, after almost a quarter of a century, he returned to Berlin, winning a position as assistant concertmaster with the Berliner Philharmoniker where he played until his retirement in 1994. An absolutely amazing, often hair raising life story.
13 of 123 musicians in the VPO were Jewish in 1938, which seems to me a disproportionately small number (given the reality of Central European musical culture). Am I correct in assuming that even before the Anschluss the orchestra was an “affirmative action program” for non-Jews? Or did Jewish musicians know to just avoid the whole organization as traditionally unwelcoming and not even attempt to join?
Also, what was going on at the same time with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra?
David Boxwell says:
March 12, 2013 at 11:41 pm
“13 of 123 musicians in the VPO were Jewish in 1938, which seems to me a disproportionately small number (given the reality of Central European musical culture). Am I correct in assuming that even before the Anschluss the orchestra was an “affirmative action program” for non-Jews? Or did Jewish musicians know to just avoid the whole organization as traditionally unwelcoming and not even attempt to join?”
I don’t think so, seeing that some very exposed positions were held by Jews, such as that of concertmaster or principal cello. Among the documents published on the WP website, there are some very sad quotes from Arnold Rosé, the famous concertmaster (and brother-in-law of Mahler) who was, obviously, completely devastated by being fired from the post he had held with great distinction for over half a century. But also very surprised. So he hadn’t seen it coming. I wouldn’t say that 10% Jewish members in the orchestra was disproportionally small, given that the Jewish community in Vienna was actually much smaller than many think – about 3% of the city’s total population. So 10% is actually a disproportionally large number, probably accurately reflecting the generally higher level of education and musical training in the Jewish community than in the non-Jewish population.
We read the article this morning in Tuesday’s El Pais. Is there an English version we can share with those who do not read Spanish?
I’m about to post a similar piece in English.