The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz A story of survival

Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Biographer Sebba (Ethel Rosenberg) offers a nuanced and unsettling exploration of the role music played at Auschwitz. The camp's all-female orchestra was the pet project of brutal camp leader Maria Mandl, who thought it would lend her "gravitas" in the eyes of Nazi higher-ups. From early 1943 to late 1944, the orchestra grew to over 40 members under the fierce and controversial leadership of conductor and internee Alma Rosé, a famous violinist (and Gustav Mahler's niece) who expanded it to fit as many Jewish women as possible, pushing against orders to keep it majority non-Jewish. In Sebba's telling, Rosé was a lonely, angry, and complex figure who would scream at musicians for a false note and stay up all night writing out music from memory. While she could be cruel, acceptance into her orchestra meant salvation from the gas chambers. The book quickly dispatches any romantic notion that music somehow transcended the camp's horrors--quite the opposite, as the musicians had to play cheery marches while fellow prisoners hobbled off to horrific, often fatal working conditions ("madhouse music... a damned rhythm of fear," one survivor called it) and play the classics for SS guards who used music to "recharge emotionally" (noted one musician, "One moment they want Schumann's Träumerei, the next moment they are putting people in the fire"). It's a chilling account of the sublime being twisted to inhumane ends. (Sept.)

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Review by Library Journal Review

Sebba's (Ethel Rosenberg: An American Tragedy) profoundly moving and rigorously researched account stands out for its emotional depth. Her writing is both elegant and unsparing, capturing the harrowing reality of Auschwitz while honoring the courage and complexity of the women in the concentration camp's orchestra, who played music to survive. The book focuses on the orchestra's members, women from across Europe, both Jewish and gentile, whose stories have often been overshadowed in Holocaust history. Sebba's language is clear, compassionate, and unflinching, making the narrative accessible without diminishing gravity. The style is measured, avoiding sensationalism and offering a careful, layered portrait of unimaginable circumstances. The book is illustrated by thoughtfully chosen archival photographs and personal papers that will enhance readers' emotional connection to the women's experiences. The design and format are excellent; the work is structured so that it guides readers through complex moral dilemmas and historical context. Sebba's subject matter is deeply relevant and valuable, illuminating the power of music as a means of survival and the impossible choices faced by those in the orchestra. VERDICT Essential reading for anyone interested in Holocaust history, resilience, and the enduring human spirit.--Lawrence Mello

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Eyewitness accounts of survivors' sufferings. The musicians of the women's orchestra in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp were required to play marches as exhausted, starving female prisoners left for and returned to camp after a day's hard labor. They also played concerts for the infirmary, guards, and visiting Nazi dignitaries. Thus, they were forced to provide the aural backdrop to the ghastly murders of 1.1 million (mostly) Jews, gassed or dead from torture or starvation. Sebba, a British author, delves into the biographies of the musicians and their conductor, Alma Rosé, "descended from German musical royalty," based on memoirs and survivor interviews conducted by the Shoah Foundation. Crucially, she tells the story not only of the players, but also of their audience of fellow prisoners. "How could we play light music here, against the background of the flames and black smoke that billowed day and night from the crematoria chimneys?" reflects one survivor. The author leaves open the question of whether the music helped prisoners or intensified their suffering. She makes clear, however, that the orchestra did not play during the "selection" of poor souls sent to the gas chambers. The players' musical skills saved at least their own lives, exempt from the work squads, though they themselves were exhausted and starving, and Jewish orchestra members were always vulnerable to "selection" for gassing. Their resident block was mere meters from a crematorium, and human ashes settled inside some of their instruments. They experienced the "scandal of music at Auschwitz on a daily basis," as the Nazis' abuse of music was itself "a form of torture." Their playing was an "effort to claw back something of what it meant to be human." An important and heartbreaking contribution to Holocaust history. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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