Music, Memory and the Holocaust

This course explores the role music played before and during the Holocaust, as well as the part it continues to play in reflecting upon this historic tragedy. We begin with an overview of the first years of the Hitler regime, including the Nazi-sponsored Jewish Cultural Association as well as the first concentration camps in Dachau and Buchenwald. We then consider music in both the 'model camp' Theresienstadt/Terezín and the work and extermination camp in Auschwitz. Finally, we examine a range of works written in direct response to the Holocaust that both bear witness and provoke contemporaries to confront the ongoing horrors of genocide.