Camp orchestra, photo from the archives of the Auschwitz-Birkenau
The exhibition Lagerkapelle commemorates musical ensembles in Auschwitz, the German concentration camp. The exhibit was inaugurated with an information session, Roads of My Life, in memory of Helena Dunicz Niwińska - violinist in the camp women's orchestra.
"The main task of the orchestra was to play during forced labour, or during the march back to the camp" writes Jacek Lachendro of the orchestra in Auschwitz (Zeszyty Oświęcimskie, No. 27, 2012). "After playing, we were required to work with the other prisoners. Musicians had the advantage of being hired as on-site workers, which allowed them to be always ready to play".
Few records of the orchestras survived in camp archives. In the words of Paweł Sawicki, press representative of the museum at Auschwitz, "The exhibition Lagerkapelle is primarily based on artistic and historical recollections".
Photo from the exhibition Lagerskapelle at the State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, photo by Thomas Pielesz / PMA-B
The exhibition comprises paintings, drawings and visual material that feature the camp orchestra. Among the items presented are original sheet music and instruments from the museum's collection, including an accordion, a clarinet, a tuba and a violin.
Posessions from former prisoner Helena Dunicz Niwińska - violinist in the Auschwitz II-Birkenau women's orchestra - are also on show. The museum press recently published her memoirs, Drogi mojego życia / Roads of My Life: Memories from a Violinist in Birkenau.
"The view from the entrance gate was the most depressing" she writes in her memoir. "Though we tried to focus on playing, we could not avoid seeing and hearing what was going on. Exhausted by long hours, the working prisoners were brought in, or dragged on the ground for those who could not survive another day of their ordeal ".
The exhibition runs until the 21st of June in the temporary exhibition hall in Block 12 in Auschwitz I.
The first concert took place in January 1941, with seven prisoner-musicians. The camp orchestra expanded into a band of 15 members who played marches for the ranks of prisoners returning to camps from work details. The brass band, numbering about a hundred prisoners in May 1942, merged with the 71 members of the symphonic band. Musicians included some of the best in Europe - mainly Poles, but also Russians, Czechs, Germans and Jews. The orchestra existed until the last days of the camp, and performed at Birkenau, near Auschwitz, and other satellite camps.
The German occupying forces established a camp in Auschwitz to imprison Poles, which was run by the SS. Auschwitz II-Birkenau was established two years later, as a place of extermination for Jews. The camp operated through a complex network of sub-camps. In Auschwitz, Germans killed at least 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, but also Poles, gypsies, Soviet prisoners of war and people of other nationalities.
PAP, Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, ed. AD, 27.05.2013,