The Ghetto Swingers were a jazz band organised in the Nazi concentration camp

Theresienstadt Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination camp ...

. The original amateur Czech band playing in the Café of the Ghetto was led by

Eric Vogel Eric T. Vogel (1896 – 1980) was a Czech jazz trumpeter. In 1938, Vogel played trumpet in a dixieland combo. After being arrested at Brno in 1939 he was made to organize a jazz school in the Jewish ghetto of that city. In Theresienstadt concen ...

and Pavel Libensky. Vogel petitioned the Kommandant on January 8, 1943. The personnel of The Ghetto Swingers would be: Dr. Brammer (piano), Dr. Kurt Bauer (percussion), Fr. Goldschmidt (guitar), Fasal (bass), Ing. Vogel (trumpet), Langer (tenor sax and clarinet), and Fr. Mautner (trombone). When the famous jazz pianist

Martin Roman Martin Roman (23 April 1910 – 12 May 1996) was a German jazz pianist. At the time of the Reichstag fire in February 1933, Martin was stopped by SS men at the entrance to the huge Vaterland emporium in Berlin, where his band, the Marek Weber Ban ...

arrived in the camp he was asked to lead. The band appeared in a Theresienstadt cabaret review, known as the ''Karussell'' ("Carousel"). The Ghetto Swingers performed over fifty times, most frequently during June and July 1944. The cabarets were organised by

Kurt Gerron Kurt Gerron (11 May 1897 – 28 October 1944) was a German Jewish actor and film director. He and his wife, Olga were murdered in the Holocaust. Life Born Kurt Gerson into a well-off merchant family in Berlin, he studied medicine before being ca ...

, who could draw upon the best talent in the camp. Both Roman and Gerron had come to Theresienstadt via the

Westerbork transit camp Camp Westerbork ( nl, Kamp Westerbork, german: Durchgangslager Westerbork, Drents: ''Börker Kamp; Kamp Westerbörk'' ), also known as Westerbork transit camp, was a Nazi transit camp in the province of Drenthe in the Northeastern Netherlands, d ...

, and qualified for entry to Theresienstadt as "artists". After the Red Cross visit to the camp, Commandant

Karl Rahm Karl Rahm (2 April 1907 – 30 April 1947) was a Sturmbannführer (major) in the German ''Schutzstaffel'' who, from February 1944 to May 1945, served as the commandant of the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Rahm was the third and final command ...

instructed Gerron to make a propaganda film. Footage shows the Ghetto Swingers playing on the wooden pavilion built for

Karel Ančerl Karel Ančerl (11 April 1908 – 3 July 1973) was a Czechoslovak conductor and composer, renowned especially for his performances of contemporary music and for his interpretations of music by Czech composers. Ančerl was born into a prosper ...

's string orchestra in the town's main square. After the camp closed, the members of the jazz band were sent to Auschwitz. Martin Roman and guitarist Coco Schumann survived. Kurt Gerron and clarinetist Bedřich "Fritz" Weiss did not. Schumann's 1997 biography includes a photo of the Ghetto Swingers, with Roman, Schumann, Weiss (clarinet and saxophone), Fritz Goldschmidt (guitar), Nettl (accordion), Jetti Kantor and Ratner (violin), Josef Taussig (trombone) and others; Kohn, Chokkes, and Erich Vogel (trumpet), Donde (tenor saxophone), Pavel Libensky (double bass), and Fredy Haber (tenor).Joža Karas Music in Terezín, 1941–1945 p. 151 1990 "percussion; and Franta Goldschmidt was the guitarist, who unfortunately had to play on a very inferior instrument. Shortly after the establishment of the "café," on January 8, 1943. An engineer and amateur trumpet player, Erich Vogel. Some of the players overlapped with the Jazz-Quintet-Weiss.

References

{{Authority control German jazz ensembles Theresienstadt Ghetto

See also

References