The role of the music in the concentration camps

Music is a fundamental part of all our lives. We listen to music when we are bored, when we are reading, when we are on a train… everyone has a special song that reminds them of a particular moment in their lives. But what happens when music becomes a weapon of terror? Well, the prisoners in Auschwitz know this very well.
In the Polish concentration camp, music was the order of the day, but let us see in what sense.

Primo Levi writes in If this is a man: “We all feel that this music is infernal. There are only a few motifs, about a dozen, and the same ones every day, morning and evening: marches and folk songs that are dear to every German. They have engraved themselves in our minds, and they will be the last thing we shall forget from the camp.”

Music was no longer a pleasure, a source of recreation, joy and social reputation. Thanks to the documentation and the testimonies, we can now say with certainty that there was no National Socialist concentration and extermination camp in which prisoner orchestras did not play on the orders of the camp command.

The first prisoner orchestra in Auschwitz-Birkenau was formed in the men’s camp in the summer of 1942. This was followed in April 1943 by the establishment of an all-girls orchestra in the women’s camp area. The Women’s Orchestra in Auschwitz was the only women’s orchestra that ever existed in a concentration camp. It had 47 members, all women from different parts of Europe.

Both the men’s and women’s orchestras in Auschwitz-Birkenau had representative functions. They played on official occasions, when high-ranking visitors were expected, or on Sundays on the roll call square. SS leaders and prisoners formed the audience. Furthermore, the musicians had to play music for the entertainment of the higher SS leaders at their private parties or for their relaxation after murder actions. However, the main task of the prisoners’ bands was to structure and accompany camp activities. For example, the women’s orchestra regularly played at the ramp for the arrival of the new deportees.

Music was thus a veritable instrument of terror, which on the one hand terrorized the prisoners, while on the other could be a source of hope for the musicians, who often remember that they not only witnessed the everyday abuse and humiliation, but that they also had to accompany it musically.

There was also music during the hanging and before the prisoners were sent to the gas chambers or crematoria. An orchestra or a single musician played cheerful melodies to distract the prisoners from what was happening, or the so-called “death tango” was played, which was like an omen for the imminent end.

In addition to this psychological burden, holding the instruments, reading notes and producing in cold weather, in thin clothing, hungry, sick and overtired with the knowledge that one wrong note could mean expulsion from the orchestra and thus death, was a special form of musical violence.

To sum up, there was music everywhere in the camps. Music was played constantly; it determined the rhythm of the prisoners’ lives and played an important role in increasing the horror and the destruction of human dignity.