Doublereed Archive - Posting 000063.txt from 2003/03

From: EWFALMP@-----.com
Subj: Re: [DR-L] [Dblrd-L] Quote of the Day
Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2003 23:23:55 -0500

In a message dated 3/7/03 11:00:33 PM Eastern Standard Time,
rbushidioglot@-----.com writes:

<<
OK. As a breathing compassionate human being who gets his jollies
listening to Mahler, maybe I shouldn't talk to my doublereed friends
about explosive issues, even though Gustov Mahler fled Nazies because
he was Jewish and feared for his life. You're probably
right....explosive issues and political issues don't belong on such a
forum. They don't concern musicians and our cerebral pursuits.

Now we'll carry on with our regularly scheduled program of happy
thoughts.
>>

Mahler was dead nearly two decades before the National Socialists (Nazis)
came to power. Many great musicians fled Nazi Germany, and many more were not
so fortunate. However, having graduated from CCM, it was with great sadness
that I read the following article sent to me last week.

To: orchestra-l@-----.org (Multiple recipients of ORCHESTRA-L)

Violinist victim of hit-and-run
Retired CCM instructor was leaving Music Hall

Cincinnati Post staff report
3/3/03

A University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music professor
emeritus and Auschwitz death camp survivor is clinging to life today
after being struck by a car following a concert at Music Hall.

Henry Meyer, 79, was in critical condition this morning at University
Hospital.

He was struck while crossing Elm Street in front of Music Hall in
Over-the-Rhine at 9:41 p.m. just after leaving the symphony Saturday
night.

Cincinnati police are looking for a late model Ford Focus or Toyota
Camry, possibly light gray or green, believed to have Ohio bicentennial
license plates.

Meyer, a violinist, was a member of the CCM-based LaSalle Quartet for 40
years and performed all over the world. The quartet, which disbanded in
1988, was one of the most important ensembles of its time.

At 20, Meyer was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp, forced to help
clean the pharmacy used by Joseph Mengele, the death camp doctor who
performed gruesome experiments on the detainees.

Meyer played in an orchestra made up of prisoners. They played marches
for the S.S. guards during the day. In the evening, they entertained
them with American music written by Jews. On several ghoulish occasions,
they even played inside the crematorium.

In 1945, with the Americans closing in, Meyer and three other prisoners
escaped. A former neighbor from Dresden recognized Meyer and identified
him to the Americans.

After studying violin in Paris, Meyer came to New York's Juilliard
School on a scholarship in 1948. It was there he met his LaSalle Quartet
colleagues.

For decades, Meyer avoided talking of his Holocaust ordeal.

"I didn't want my musical career attended by pity," he said in a 1995
interview. As he became one of the few left with actual memories of the
Holocaust, Meyer came to believe it was his "absolute duty" to speak. He
has filed a videotaped oral history at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Museum in Washington, D.C.

The hit-and-run Saturday evokes memories of an earlier tragic incident
involving a visitor to Music Hall. In July 1990, Moisey Shtrom, 52, was
beaten to death as he left Music Hall with his wife, Eugenia. A
teen-ager who ripped the necklace from the neck and the purse out of the
hands of Mrs. Shtrom, struck Mr. Shtrom in the head with a rock.

Clarence Coleman was convicted in that death and another and sentenced
to 80 years in prison.

Born in Dresden, Germany, Meyer was a child prodigy seemingly destined
for a solo career. His brother, Fritz, was a pianist; his parents were
prominent business people. Popular at school, Meyer often performed
Christmas carols for his friends.

Hitler came to power when he was 10, and, step-by-step, Jews were
singled out. Meyer was forced to leave school. His bicycle was taken.
His parents were forced to sell their business. He remembers wondering
why he spent so much time saying good-bye at railroad stations.

After Kristallnacht -- the Nov. 9, 1938, raids in which Nazis
demolished Jewish businesses in several cities in Germany -- Meyer and
his brother were put to work making bomb timers. They had to report to
the Gestapo every day. Sometimes they were beaten. In one particularly
chilling incident, an S.S. officer pushed Fritz's grand piano over a
balcony into the street.

In 1942, their parents were deported to Riga, Latvia. He never saw them
again.

In 1943, the brothers were shipped to Auschwitz. "It was our turn to
become part of the "final solution," Meyer said.

After Fritz was carted off with the "unfit and useless," Meyer became
ill.

Then his luck kicked in.

A doctor, who had heard him play in Breslau, put a dead prisoner in his
place and got him a janitorial job in the S.S. pharmacy.