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The orchestra played at the gate when the work gangs went out, and when they returned. During the final stages of the Holocaust , when the mass deportations of Jews from Eastern Europe occurred and large numbers of Jews were sent directly to the gas chambers, the orchestra played in order to put the minds of the victims at ease. The music preserved the illusion that the Jews were being transported "to the East", and allowed the SS to kill more efficiently. Fania Fénelon denies, in her book, the claim that the orchestra had to play certain specific selections, and calls this a myth. However, she records concerts for the SS, and reported that Maria Mandel was particularly fond of her rendition of Madame Butterfly . The history of the orchestra has been told in novels, documentaries and films. The best known documentation is , she was considerably more experienced and sophisticated than most of the teenaged girls in the orchestra, to whose immaturity she condescended. Nor did her and the other Jewish women's hatred of the Christian Poles in the orchestra entirely reflect the truth. But most significantly, Rosé emerges in her biography as a heroine who saved the lives of nearly all the women in her care by forcing them to work their hardest even if they were marginally talented, though her dramatic temperament and her egotism do not go unremarked. Other potential sources of controversy were represented by Fénelon's novelistic rendering of her experience, with reconstructed conversations and thinly veiled name changes (Violette Jacquet became "Florette," Hélène Scheps and Rounder both became "Irene," Anita Lasker Wallfisch was "Marta," and Fanny Birkenwald was "Anny"), and her frank treatment of both prostitution and lesbianism in the camps, with several alleged lesbian liaisons between orchestra members (toward which Fénelon was compassionate). Both the English and the German translations of her memoir were slightly abridged in respect to this last matter. Rosé died in 1944 of unknown causes; poisoning was suspected by Fénelon and others, but most likely the cause was either botulism or typhus. After Rosé the orchestra was conducted haphazardly by Sonia Vinogradovna , a Russian prisoner, but in January 1945 Auschwitz was dismantled by the Nazis and the orchestra was sent to Bergen-Belsen . Two members, Lola Kroner and Julie Stroumsa , died there. The rest survived, though Ewa Stojowska was badly beaten and Fania Fénelon nearly died of typhus. She wrote that the orchestra was scheduled to be shot to death on the same day as the liberation by British troops. Fénelon was interviewed by the BBC on the day of liberation and performed "La Marseillaise" and "God Save the King." MEMBERS OF THE ORCHESTRA
As of 2005, Esther Bejarano , Violette Jacquet , and Anita Lasker Wallfisch are known to be among the last living survivors of the girl orchestra. LITERATURE
:Authors: ''' Fania Fénelon Marcelle Routier :ISBN 3423132914
:Authors: Esther Bejarano Birgit Gardner :ISBN 3891443536
:Author: ''' Esther Bejarano
:Authors: Richard Newman Karen Kirtley
:Author: Anita Lasker Wallfisch :ISBN 3499226707
:Author: Gabriele Knapp
:Author: Lilla Máthé
:Author: Violette Jacquet :ISBN 2350000443
:Author: Jacques Stroumsa (mentions Julie Stroumsa ) :ISBN 2204059145
:Author: Mirjam Verheijen MEDIA
:51'34 minutes in the discussion with Silke Behl . 22 January 2002 : Northwest Radio See Links 1
:Transmission cut from 24 January 2002 See Links 2
FILMS
SEE ALSO — in the German Wikipedia EXTERNAL LINKS |
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