A story of survival, music, and defiance in the face of unimaginable horror
Last Musician of Auschwitz draws on first-person accounts of the Holocaust conveyed by a clever mix of archive recordings, testaments from survivors, and written accounts voiced by actors. Profoundly moving performances are interspersed throughout, music played and filmed on location, Auschwitz looming menacingly in the background.
At its heart is the remarkable story of the last remaining musician of Auschwitz, founder of the English Chamber Orchestra, cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch. Throughout the ninety-minute programme Lasker-Wallfisch’s recollections are combined with the accounts of surviving relatives of other musicians who fell victim to the genocide.
Watching ninety-nine year-old Lasker-Wallfisch retelling how music helped her avoid the gas chambers whilst occasionally seeing her on camera smoking a cigarette underlines her remarkable strength and magnetic defiance.
Peppered throughout the accounts is a testament to the power that music has to distract, ground, and console even amid the grimmest of situations. Here, music wasn’t only a lifeline for musicians, but a grotesque weapon used by the Nazis to manipulate, misdirect, and control.
Last Musician of Auschwitz tells the story of the Holocaust from the perspective of musicians and composers. Beautifully made and profoundly moving, it also reveals how some of the UK’s most cherished musicians exist today because music saved their mother from Nazi extermination. An epic achievement.