The Holocaust featuring Anita Lasker-Wallfisch and the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz

What was the role of the women's orchestra in Nazi Germany’s Auschwitz camp during the Holocaust?

Know (knowledge)

• What the Holocaust was and how it happened
• Who Anita Lasker-Wallfisch is and her role as a musician in the Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz
• How being a member of the orchestra greatly assisted Lasker-Wallfisch and others in surviving the Holocaust
• The role of music performed at the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp
• How the Nazi Party seized power in Germany in 1933 and 1934
  

Mastery Objective

• Students will be able to explain the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany, identify what the Holocaust was and how it happened, and describe the role of music performed at the Auschwitz camp during the Holocaust by examining quotes from an Auschwitz prisoner and Holocaust survivor, analyzing images, viewing videos, defining terms, and listening to music.

“The last thing that I imagined when going to Auschwitz was that I would ever have a conversation about playing the cello.” - Anita Lasker-Wallfisch

In this lesson, students identify how the Nazi Party seized power in Germany during 1933 and 1934 by analyzing contemporaneous U.S. newspaper stories. They examine quotes from a memoir by Auschwitz prisoner and Holocaust survivor, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, as well as maps and a chart, to identify what the Holocaust was and how it happened. Students discover the role of live music performance at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp by exploring Lasker-Wallfisch's position as the cellist in the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz. Students then determine how Lasker-Wallfisch's experience as a member of the orchestra greatly assisted in her survival.

Through 1933 and 1934, the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party seized power in Germany. Upon Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor of Germany in January 1933, the Nazi regime moved quickly to transition the German government from a fledgling democratic republic to a totalitarian state. In less than two years, the government’s legislative body was dismantled, opposition political parties were outlawed, and political adversaries as well as other marginalized groups were imprisoned in newly-built concentration camps. Furthermore, new laws began the state-sponsored persecution of the German Jewish population. By August of 1934, Hitler had ascended to the role of Supreme Leader (Führer), with the military now swearing an oath of allegiance to Germany’s new dictator.

As the Nazi regime transformed German society over the next several years, new policies set in motion what would come to be known as the Holocaust. While anti-semitism had a long history in German society and throughout Europe, as early as April 1933 the German state began promoting the boycotting of Jewish businesses in Germany. In September 1935, the Nuremberg Race Laws stripped German Jewish citizens of their citizenship, no longer affording them protection under the law. The laws sought to codify what constituted “German blood”, with mandates precluding certain relationships with those considered Jewish according to the Nazis.

The murder of a German official by a Jewish man at the Paris German Embassy in November 1938 sparked a brutal pogrom throughout all of Germany. The incident is now known as Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) because of the shattered glass that littered the streets after the destruction of German Jewish businesses, homes, and synagogues. Furthermore, German Jews were arrested, imprisoned, and murdered throughout Germany during this pogrom. The following year, the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 ignited World War II as France and Great Britain responded to Nazi aggression by declaring war on Germany. The occupation of Poland, and the later invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 by Germany, led to increasingly larger Jewish populations coming under Nazi control. In response, the Nazi regime began the mass murder of Polish and Soviet Jews, and then the large-scale genocide of Jewish populations throughout Europe. 

During these preceding years, Anita Lasker was a young German girl living in the small town of Breslau, Germany. She was raised in a musical family and began playing the cello at an early age. Although she later shared that her family “had been scarcely conscious of our Jewishness at home”, this did not protect them from the Nazi regime’s anti-semitic policies and actions. As the Holocaust escalated throughout the 1930s, the Lasker family endured severe hardships and later attempted to flee Germany but were unsuccessful. In April 1942, Anita’s parents were taken into custody by the Nazis and were murdered after being deported to a Jewish ghetto in eastern German-occupied Poland. Anita and her sister Renate went into hiding, attempted to flee Germany, and then were arrested by the Nazi Gestapo. Ultimately, they were sent separately to Auschwitz: a concentration, extermination, and forced-labor camp complex also in German-occupied Poland.

The Nazi’s opened their first concentration camp in Dachau, Germany in 1933 to incarcerate their political enemies and other German citizens not favorable to the regime. There would eventually be thousands of Nazi camps as World War II progressed, and many were located in German-occupied Poland, including Auschwitz. Auschwitz was the largest camp established by the Nazi regime, and it was organized into a complex of subcamps. “Auschwitz I” was the main area of the complex and the concentration camp. “Auschwitz II”, also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, was an extermination camp or killing center. “Auschwitz III” was a forced-labor camp for prisoners working at facilities owned by industries allied to the Nazis.

Anita Lasker was deported to Auschwitz in “late 1943”. While being processed as a prisoner upon arrival, Lasker casually shared with a fellow prisoner that she played the cello. Much to her surprise, this was potentially life-saving information and she was soon introduced to Alma Rosé, another prisoner who led the Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz. Lasker soon joined the orchestra as its cellist and while her living conditions improved marginally, she also faced intense disdain from fellow prisoners who felt the orchestra’s members were choosing to serve their Nazi occupiers by performing music at various camp functions as a means of subjugation.

The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz (WOA) was founded by the Nazi German Schutzstaffel or “Protection Squad” (commonly known as the “SS”) in April 1943. It was composed primarily of young Jewish and Slavic female prisoners. In German, it was called the Mädchenorchester von Auschwitz or "Girls' Orchestra of Auschwitz”. Housed near the killing center at Auschwitz II, the WOA’s main function was to perform music daily as camp prisoners went to and from their forced-labor locations. However, the WOA also played private concerts for the SS, as well as providing musical accompaniment for other functions at Auschwitz. While the WOA is the only known women’s orchestra within the Nazi camp system, orchestras were somewhat common in camps throughout Nazi-occupied Europe as a tool of prisoner oppression and compliance.

As Nazi Germany began to lose World War II, camp prisoners were evacuated to other camps farther westward to escape advancing Soviet troops from the east, and to leave as little evidence of their mass genocide behind. For Anita Lasker, this meant being forced to leave Auschwitz for the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in late 1944. With dwindling resources, thousands of camp prisoners died in the waning days of the war. The Nazis eventually abandoned Bergen-Belsen and British forces liberated the camp on April 15, 1945. Lasker survived the Holocaust and soon emigrated to Great Britain. In the years to come, she became a British citizen, led a successful career as a musician, got married (now Anita Lasker-Wallfisch), raised a family, and would not return to Germany for nearly 50 years. In 2018, she was invited to address the German Bundestag (German legislature) at a commemoration marking the 73rd anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. As a guest of the Bundestag, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch delivered a speech to the same legislative body, and within in the same building, that had aided Adolf Hitler’s rise to Führer 85 years earlier.

This lesson contains primary source documents and other materials that may include terms and images reflecting the attitudes, perspectives, and beliefs of different times that today are considered offensive and demeaning. Teachrock.org does not endorse the views expressed in these documents, but recognizes the value such materials provide for historical inquiry. For guidance on introducing controversial historical materials into the classroom, we suggest reviewing this document from The Library of Congress: https://blogs.loc.gov/teachers/2011/11/dealing-with-difficult-subjects-in-primary-sources.

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