Music in the Holocaust: Confronting Life in the Nazi Ghettos and Camps (review)

Music in the Holocaust documents a wide range of musical activities in the camps and ghettos of Nazi-occupied Europe. The Holocaust represents a substantial academic field, but the author is clear in her intentions not only to document but also to critique the literature. Gilbert shows how music functions as a participatory activity as much as in individual musical works that have survived. She starts with a quote from Levi that sets up her disquiet about the stability of testimonies and the politics of representing “sacred” memories. Gilbert is careful to position her own development from being deeply impressed by the scale of musical activity to questioning the ways in which these activities responded to and were influenced by the social environment. She argues for a more complex reading of these activities that reflects more problematically the difficulties of the situation, calling for a move from the romantic notion of “spiritual resistance” of music to a position of diversity that investigates in detail the realities of social disparity in camp and ghetto life. This is significant. As Gilbert notes, the focus on diversity “allows us to recognise the multi-faceted nature of human behaviour rather than reducing it to assailable stereotypes” (p. 4). This is not to negate the role of culture in extremis, but opens up the frames of reference to explore its complexity through reference to the specifics of particular art forms in particular social contexts, thus critiquing the tendency in some of the Holocaust literature to obscure realities through generalization and romanticism.

The book is structured into four chapters, dealing with music in the Warsaw ghetto, Vilna, Sachsenhausen, and Auschwitz. The research is detailed and first rate, but Gilbert is able to tally the immense detail without losing track of her overall purpose to reveal and explore how meaning and understanding can be derived from these social contexts.

In the first chapter, Gilbert explores how the different classes in the Warsaw Ghetto used different forms and approaches to music as part of their social life. She reflects on how the Ghetto created new social inequalities, often governed by those involved in criminal activities as much as the skilled workers or elite classes. Cultural life responded to this broad social diversity, promoting orchestras, Polish and Yiddish theatres, choral groups, and café music. Underlying the chapter is a critique of how different social groups responded to the changing social and political contexts, and the ways in which songs and music were used to help document and reflect ghetto life.

The second chapter deals with the tension between how music was used as active resistance and how it was employed to promote passive acceptance of the political context. Both might be seen as valid forms of surviving and “dealing with the enemy.” What makes this chapter fascinating is its specificity in exploring the work of the underground Fareynigte Partizaner Organizatsye (United Partisans Organisation, FPO) and the work of the Jewish Council.

The third and fourth chapters explore what Levi called the “Grey Zone” of camp life in Sachsenhausen and Auschwitz. The two chapters explore the complex matrices of power and privilege within the camps, critiquing the romantic notion of music as spiritual resistance. This distinguishes Gilbert’s work as it documents and reflects upon the ways in which social hierarchies within inmate communities informed how music was used in the camps.

Music in the Holocaust is more than a simple record of music in Nazi ghettos and camps; it is a carefully constructed provocation that seeks to respect and assess the ways in which musicians made use of the arts in a variety of ways, while not flinching from contradictory and complex evidence that point to a range of sociological experiences. Gilbert values divergent voices rather than seeking to simply “universalize” her subject matter. It is this precision, and attention to detail in the case studies, which gives her book and thesis such...