Rafael Schächter was a talented composer but the Nazi party would not let him perform. He struggled to survive but teaching piano lessons to young pupils.

Then he got new that he was being imprisoned at a work camp called Terezin. One of the few worldly possessions he took was the score to Verdi’s Requiem.

Conditions at the camp were horrible with prisoners having to work more that 10 hours a day for the Nazi party. There was never enough food. Hope was lost. Rafael realized that music is food for the soul and he began to recruit singers to join a chorus that sang each evening in a cold damp basement. Singers entered a new reality. One survivor remembered that her stomach didn’t seem to grumble when she sang. Music was a form of rebellion against imprisonment. Human dignity was regained if only for a moment.

The Verdi Reqium is a complex choral piece to perform. Rafael  molded the amateur chorus teaching them the Latin lyrics by rote. Three times Rafael had to reconstitute the choir as members were transported to Auschwitz. Then came the moment he had hoped for. The Red Cross was being shown the prison camp by the Nazi’s. The camp was scrubbed and made to look like new. Signs were made to a library, and post office, which did not exist. Swing sets and a soccer field were added.The sick and dying were shuttered behind closed doors. The sickest were sent to Auchwitz and murdered. Had the red cross veered from the tour and opened just one door they would have witnessed unimaginable horrors.

Rafael was going to  have his choir sing directly to the Nazi officers what they could never say. The requiem is a treat against the unjust. The words are in Latin but they could be interpreted to condemn the Nazis to one day face their punishment for their crimes.” that day will dissolve the world in ashes, as David and the Sibyl prophesied. How great will be the terror, when the Judge comes who will smash everything completely!”

Half or the chorus was carted off in cattle cars to Auschwitz right before the performance. The hope was that the red cross would see the performance as defiance against the Nazi captors. The red cross only saw what the Nazis wanted them to see.

After the red cross left, the swing sets vanished as did all the children. 15,000 children lived in the work camp, of whom about 90% perished after deportation. In the following weeks the entire chorus was shipped off the Auschwitz in cattle cars. Rafael survived Auschwitz and several other concentration camps but died on a death march just months before the Nazi’s surrendered at the end of the war.

If Terazin wasn’t pure hell then it was the waiting room for hell. The prisoners were surrounded by man’s worst but they were determined to demonstrate mans best through music.

Defiant Requiem is being performed at the Dr Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. In Steinmetz Hall 445 South Magnolia Avenue, Orlando FL.

Saturday, September 14, 2024
Show time: 7:30 p.m.
Tickets from: $49
Age advisory: Recommended age 13+

The run time for the concert is 2 hours with no intermission.