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We Remember Them

Bryan F. Black, Director
Leanne Elmer Hermann, Accompanist

A Concert in Commemoration of Yom HaShoah, the Day of Holocaust Remembrance

With Special Guests:
Cantor Deborah Benardot, Soprano
The Temple Young Adult Chorus
Jim Bell, Baritone
Dr. Peter Lemonds, Cello
Alan Knieter, Clarinet

Presented as a part of the special events program of The Temple and in conjunction with Arts & Ideas at Oglethorpe University

April 19, 2001
26^th day of Nisan, 5761 
The Temple Atlanta, Georgia

We Remember Them (1999) by Donald McCullough, words by an unknown author

Ashrei Hagafrur ("Blessed is the Match", 1980) by Lawrence Avery, poem by Hannah Szenesh (1921-1944)

Ani Maamin ("Song of Faith", 1948) by Max Helfman (1901-1963)

Will Still Live On (2001) by Brent Weaver, words by Luba Gurdus (1943)
   performed by The Temple Young Adult Chorus, directed by Cantor Deborah Benardot
   Alan Knieter, Clarinet
   Dr. Peter Lemonds, Cello

Anthem, Opus 96 (1999) by Eskil Hemberg (b. 1938), poem by Dag Hammarskjöld, translated by W.H. Auden

Holocaust Cantata: Songs from the Camps (1998), arr. by Donald McCullough
   Pat Matthews, Narrator
   Cantor Deborah Benardot, Soprano
   Jim Bell, Baritone
   Mary Slaughter, Mezzo Soprano
   Dr. Peter Lemonds, Cello

1. The Prisoner Rises, composed at Majdanek, 1943-44. Military melody, author unknown.
2. Singing Saved My Life
3. Song of the Polish Prisoners, Buchenwald, 1944. Melody by J. Kropinski, words by K. Wójtowicz
4. The Execution of the Twelve
5. In Buchenwald, Buchenwald, 1944. Melody by J. Kropinski, words by K. Wójtowicz
6. A State of Separation / The Story of Irena Augustyñska Kafka
7. The Train, Brzezinka, 1944. Melody by unknown composer, words by K. Zywulska
8. Singing from Birth until Death
9. The Striped Ones, Majdanek, 1943. Folk Tune, words by Zofia Karpinska
10. There's No Life like Life at Auschwitz
11. Tempo di Tango, Buchenwald, 1944. Melody by J. Kropinski
12. Letter to Mom
13. Song of Days Now Gone, Buchenwald, July 1, 1943. Words and nusic by J. Kropinski

Program Notes by Michaelene Gorney

Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day, was established in remembrance of the Holocaust and the six million Jews who perished therein. "HaShoah" is the Hebrew word for "whirlwind," used to describe the conflagration, which took place between 1938 and 1945. Holocaust Remembrance Day takes place on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, a month-long resistance beginning April 19, 1943, when German troops and police entered the Warsaw ghetto to deport its surviving inhabitants. By May 16, the revolt had ended and, with it, the efforts of underground resistance movements which had been active since 1941.

Annotator James Carman writes: "The author of We Remember Them is unknown, but the sense of this poem's powerful text is universal, and given eloquent voice by McCullough's bittersweet melody. It serves as an appropriate coda, both to this recording and to the people whose words and music are offered here. It is not enough that the victims of the Holocaust be remembered on special occasions, nor even that the burden of that remembering fall on only one segment of the world's population. We must all remember and carry with us constantly the knowledge of what can occur when bigotry and oppression go unchallenged. If this recording helps bring that message to new hearts and minds, if it helps put a human face on what all too often becomes a list of statistics, then it will have achieved an important purpose. Let the voice of this anonymous poet have the final word: 'For as long as we live, they too shall live. For they are now a part of us, as we remember them.' "

Blessed Is the Match (Ashrei Hagafrur) is a poem by Hannah Szenesh (1921-1944), born in Budapest to an author and a journalist. Szenesh became involved in Zionist activities and left Budapest at the age of eighteen for Eretz Yisrael, where she studied agriculture and wrote poems, a play, and her diary, all published after her death. In 1943, she joined the British Army and volunteered to be parachuted into Europe, her mission to contact resistance fighters in an effort to aid Jewish communities. She parachuted into Yugoslavia and spent three months there; it was during this time that "Blessed Is the Match" was written. Szenesh became the match of which she writes when, in 1944, at the height of the deportation of Hungarian Jews, she crossed the border into Hungary and was taken into custody by Hungarian police. After months of torture, and refusing to be blindfolded, she was executed by a firing squad.

Lawrence Avery is Cantor Emeritus of Beth El Synagogue in New Rochelle, New York. Having earned degrees in voice, music education, and opera from the Juilliard School, he was urged to become a Hazzan by his father, a cantor by avocation. After studying at an Orthodox synagogue in the Rockaways, Avery entered the School of Sacred Music of the Hebrew Union College (HUC) – Jewish Institute of Religion (JIR). Since then, he has soloed and recorded with The Juilliard Opera Theater, Tanglewood, the CBS Symphony, Cantica Hebraic, and with Jan Peerce, his mentor, friend, and congregant. Avery has also taught at the HUC – JIR and the H. L. Miller Cantorial School of the Jewish Theological Seminary and has conducted Master Classes in California, Massachusetts, and New York.

Song of Faith (Ani Maamin) is a setting of the twelfth of the Thirteen Articles of Faith compiled from the Commandments of the Torah by Moses Maimonides, the Medieval Jewish scholar: "I believe with a full heart in the coming of the Messiah and even though he may tarry, I will still wait for him." According to Cantor Benardot, these words were often among the last spoken by Jews being marched into Nazi gas chambers. They reflect the belief that the Messiah will come when the world is perfect – in complete harmony and PEACE.

Max Helfman (1901-1963) was born in Radzyn, Poland and emigrated to New York in 1909. After studying music for several years, he was awarded a fellowship to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. During his life, Helfman led several music societies, served as music director at temples in Los Angeles, Hollywood, Newark, and Paterson, and from 1944-61 served as head of the music department at the Brandeis Arts Institute of the Brandeis Youth Foundation in Santa Susana, California. In 1961, he founded the School of Fine Arts at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles and was founding dean of the School of Fine Arts at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York. His works, in a variety of styles featuring Jewish themes, include sacred and secular voice and choral music, Israeli folk melodies, and music for organ, violin, chamber ensemble, and ballet. His Friday evening service, the Shabbat Kodesh, is one of his most successful and enduring works.

Anthem uses as its base a popular Swedish hymn, overlaid with the words of Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1953-1961, translated by the English-American poet W. H. Auden. Eskil Hemberg (b. 1938) is one of the foremost Swedish composers of his generation, credited with gaining international recognition for Swedish choral music. He has written works for soloists, a cappella chorus, chorus and orchestra, and opera. With degrees from the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, Hemberg has served as General Manager and Music Director of the Royal Swedish Opera and is a founding member of the International Federation of Choral Music.

The story of the Holocaust Cantata: Songs from the Camps begins with Aleksander Kulisiewicz (b. 1920), who survived the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen from 1939-1945. While in Sachsenhausen, Kulisiewicz organized illegal poetry readings and songs, for which he was injected three times with diptheria bacilli–a "scientific" means intended to destroy his voice. He was saved by friends who managed to smuggle in the antidote. After World War II, Kulisiewicz dictated hundreds of pages of poems and songs he had memorized in Sachsenhausen, including his own. Accompanying himself on a guitar, which once belonged to a camp victim, he has sung to audiences throughout Europe and Japan and has recorded eight albums, including the Folkways Records album, "Songs from the Depths of Hell." Should you wish to listen to this album, please keep in mind that reviewer Peter Wortsman grossly underestimates the recording's impact when he writes: "the songs…are not so nice to listen to."

Composer/conductor Donald McCullough, aware that many prominent classical composers and their talented students perished in the Holocaust, also wondered about the music of informally trained musicians whose songs would reveal the most common day-to-day aspects of camp life. Immersing himself in the Kulisiewicz collection, now at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, McCullough engaged Marcin Zmudzki, a young Pole, to sort through the voluminous texts for writings related to music. Desiring his intended composition to have some immediacy for its audience, he also requested English translations faithful to the original texts from lyricist Denny Clark.

The Holocaust Cantata, premiered at the Kennedy Center in 1998, is not intended to be viewed as a continuous narrative. As annotator James Carman writes, "Each song and reading represents a different person, a different place, and a different time ... Nonetheless, certain truths will begin to emerge ... Among them is the certainty that these are nakedly honest responses to the most unthinkable of acts. Sometimes the responses are jarring; who could find humor amid such horror? ... Nevertheless the inmates' responses never sink to the level of triteness. For them, music functioned as something much more than just a light in the darkness; its very existence was a form of spiritual resistance in an environment where such resistance risked instant extermination."

Donald McCullough, music director of the Master Chorale of Washington and the Master Chorale Chamber Singers, has several publications to his credit as an arranger and composer. He is on the board of directors of Chorus America, a service organization for choral groups in the United States and Canada, and initiated the DC Public Schools All-City Honor Chorus, partnering with the DCPS Arts and Humanities Initiative, the Kennedy Center, and the Master Chorale of Washington. He holds degrees in organ and voice from Stetson University and in sacred music and voice from Southern Methodist University.

These sources and websites were consulted in the preparation of these notes:
"Yom HaShoah – How to remember the Holocaust" by Rabbi Yehudah Prero
The website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, www.ushmm.org
"Aleksander Kulisiewicz: A Singer from Hell," Peter Wortman, Sing Out! The Folk Song Magazine, Volume 26, November 3, 1977
Anthem, Eskil Hemberg, Walton Music Corporation, 2000
Concise Encyclopedia of Jewish Music by Macy Nulman
Information provided by Beth El Synagogue, New Rochelle, New York
Cantor Deborah Benardot, The Temple, Atlanta, Georgia
www.masterchorale.org
www.us-israel.org
www.mayimhayim.org
www.Encyclopedia.com