Musicians of Auschwitz

There's a great scene from one of my favorite movies, Shawshank Redemption, where a prisoner who has just served extended time in "the hole" (solitary confinement in a space not big enough to stand up in with no light) tells his fellow inmates it was the easiest time he'd ever done. He explains to them that he had Mr. Mozart and other great musicians to keep him company. He tells them that in prison they can steal your freedom, but they can't take away the music in your head and in your heart. It's a beautiful sentiment and one I believed until yesterday.

Yesterday I learned that even music can be stolen from a person if the thief is cunning and evil enough. Yesterday I learned about the musicians of Auschwitz.

Auschwitz was a concentration camp run by the SS in Poland during WWII. The vast majority of Jews who were sent there were murdered. However, Auschwitz also had an orchestra. Prisoners were told that they could audition for one of the 40 orchestra positions and if they were selected it meant extra food, daily showers and no hard labor. Those who made it considered themselves very fortunate until it was revealed how they would be used.

The powers that be ordered the orchestra to set up at the entrance of the camp and play upbeat marching songs as their fellow prisoners returned from forced labor having left some behind for dead and carrying others who could not walk. The marching music was not only unbelievably offensive, but seeing it being played by fellow Jews who were clean and well fed and not forced to participate in the manual labor made the others feel like their own brothers and sisters had turned against them.

They were also forced to play happy music in the death houses where people were literally on their death beds, and they played the role of welcoming band as new arrivals got off the trains and were separated into those who could be used for hard labor (10%) and those who would be taken to the gas chambers (90%). Even though the musicians knew what was going on, their only choice was to play or be killed. The music put the new arrivals at ease. They figured any place with a welcoming band at the train depot couldn't be all bad. The musicians had no choice but to propagate the lie.

Music saved the lives of those in the orchestra, but when they returned home after this experience, most never played again and some could not even listen to music because of the haunting memories. Their stories made me literally weep. I cried for them, I cried for those who never made it home and I cried for what I am capable of when evil lives in my heart.

Evil loves nothing more than to take what could be used for so much good (money, power, desire, intelligence, talent, music, art, the human body, community, etc.) and corrupt it. That is still the goal of Satan today and I am his prime target. So are you.

God help us.