Art over Darkness Stories
Theatrical Revues in Nazi-era Ghettos
In the overcrowded Ghetto, a walled off seven blocks housing over 40,000 Jewish residents of Vilna (Vilnius), a stopover before death camps or mass grave pits, a group of writers and performers launched variety shows of poignant and satirical songs and skits. Despite posters decrying that "In a graveyard you do not do theatre" and plastered around the Vilna Ghetto in the early 1940s, concerts, performances and lectures became an important social occurrence among the starving population of the ghetto which was also mourning for its dead. In hundreds of standing room performances, 38,000 inmates could rise above their horrific circumstances and depraved conditions, immerse in hope, however fleeting. Survivors spoke of the theatre performances as a “miracle.” Nothing could keep audiences away, not even the presence of hostile soldiers in the audience, or the grim reality of omnipresent random murders, imminent death and starvation. Creativity and spirit were sustained and nourished, and some of the songs written then are still being sung and recorded today.
Music in Holocaust Death Camps
Edith Steiner Krauss, a pianist who played to survive the Terezin concentration camp (Theresienstadt), one of the last to perform there, before she died at 100 years of age, explained: “I don’t remember being sick, though I was told I was ill a lot; I don’t recall being hungry, though we all were. I just remember the music.”
Young actress, Sima Skurkovitz, who participated in the Maydim puppet shows in the Vilna (Vilnius) Ghetto, wrote: “the plays and songs are an expression of what was in our hearts, what we were experiencing - the killings, our pain... They gave us the hope to survive.” Rachel Kostanian-Danzig, Spiritual Resistance in the Vilna Ghetto (Vilnius, 2002).
The Defiant Requiem – Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín tells the story of the courageous Jewish prisoners in the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp (Terezín) during World War II who performed Verdi’s Requiem while experiencing the depths of human degradation. With only a single smuggled score, they performed the celebrated oratorio sixteen times, including one performance before senior SS officials from Berlin and an International Red Cross delegation. Conductor Rafael Schächter told the choir, “We will sing to the Nazis what we cannot say to them.” Defiant Requiem is not just a performance of the Verdi Requiem, but a tribute to Schächter’s inspired leadership who was forced to reconstitute the choir three times as members were transported to Auschwitz. The performances came to symbolize resistance and defiance and demonstrated the prisoners’ courage to confront the worst of mankind with the best of mankind.
The Pianist (2002), starring Adrien Brody, tells the heart-wrenching story of acclaimed Polish Jewish musician, Władysław Szpilman, and his harrowing journey through the ‘Warsaw Ghetto’ during the Second World War. The film is inspired by the autobiography, The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man’s Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945.
The piano was photographed - a few months into the Israel-Gaza war - in a Gazan music school. Credit: Khamis Abu Shaban
There is one image that keeps a Gaza musician going like no other - that of the territory’s only concert grand piano.
Khamis Abu Shaban had finally risked returning to the music school at which he taught - and which owns the piano - a few months into the current conflict…. “The only… instrument that I saw standing was the grand piano. Honestly, I smiled when I saw it. I smiled and I laughed.”
The Yamaha concert grand also withstood bombing in a previous war between Israel and Gaza’s de facto rulers - Hamas - in 2014, and was carefully restored the following year by a French music technician. It became a symbol for many of aspirations that the territory could develop a flourishing musical culture.
“I started talking to the piano,” says Khamis. “I asked: ‘Are you the only survivor of all the instruments? You don't want to die?’ I really laughed.”
Credit: Johannes-Wasmuth-Gessellschaft e. V./Niraz Saied
In the film The "Piano Man of Yarmouk," Aeham Ahmad played the piano in the bombed-out ruins in Yarmouk, a suburb of Damascus, Syria and became a symbol of hope and defiance. His videos went viral and his images playing piano amid the ruins of Syria went around the world, illustrating the power of music to provide glimpses of hope and humanity in desperate times.
Famous Cellist of Sarajevo during the Bosnian war, Vedram Smailović donned an increasingly dusty tuxedo and played Albinoni's Adagio in G MINOR in the destroyed national library in Sarajevo. Despite the risk of sniper fire, Smailović played for 22 consecutive days in memory of each of the 22 people killed queuing for bread in May 1992.
Credit: Kimia Art Instagram
Since the Taliban took over control of Afghanistan in August 2021 it severely stifled women’s and girls’ civic and human rights and criminalized nearly all acts of creative expression. Armed with their pens and the strength of their convictions, Afghan women have turned to writing, storytelling, and art as a means of resistance, standing together in solidarity and fostering a sense of empowerment that echoes across the nation.
Some, in the privacy of their home have delved into the world of narrative and storytelling,… weaving tales that captured the resilience, strength, and courage of women like them who refused to give up on their dreams. As one of the women says, “They may have closed the doors of the university to me, but I will fight them with the might of my words. My pen will serve as my unyielding weapon.”
Credit: Art by Emad Abdalmonem
In the aftermath of the war which began on 15 April 2023, many artists were displaced, including, Emad Abdalmonem, a 26-year-old Sudanese painter and sculptor, who fled to his hometown Shendi, 150 km northeast of Khartoum.
“Starting from scratch was unimaginable, witnessing the suffering the war inflicted right before my eyes.” Abdelmonem embarked on a beginning of a new era of expression—a resistance against darkness and negativity; an opportunity to create something that would be seen as a beacon of hope.
“Amidst the will to survive and the urge to retreat, I began to paint. To me, it represents more than just a painting; it signifies the birth of resilience, hope, and optimism in a time of despair,” he said describing his artwork as a testament to the indomitable human spirit and the desire to evolve beyond the hardships of war.
Credit: Unsplash/Yusuf Yassir
For Sudanese artists in their country’s burgeoning art scene, “Art is a language to tell the stories of this moment. It’s a way of narrating our own story.” Visual artists who recently emerged from decades of censorship of creative art generated artistic momentum with new galleries and exhibitions.
Amidst 2023 explosions and warfare in Sudan, five hundred miles northeast of Khartoum, in Port Sudan, a collective of artists has begun organizing public art projects in which people can paint and listen to music to relieve stress. Linda Bashai, a professor who studies social movements in Sudan, explains: “People were exploding with the desire to create. It’s a marker of the democratic movement that it draws on this creativity.”
Ukrainian Musicians Infuse Kharkiv Ruins with Tender Melodies (2022)
Cellist, Denys Karachevtsev, playing in the bombed Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. Credit: Classic FM
Ukrainian string musicians restore spirits in Kharkiv’s bombed-out streets and shelter
Cellist, Denys Karachevtsev, sits on a stool in the road in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. The city has experienced relentless Russian shelling since the invasion began a month ago today. “I deeply believe that we can help. I believe we can restore and rebuild our city and our country when the war is over.
Another Ukrainian musician, Vera Lytochenko, a member of the Kharkiv City Opera Orchestra, went viral on Twitter after a video was posted of her playing a violin melody in a bomb shelter. Karachevtsev’s video received over 100,000 views across YouTube and Instagram. He thanked his audience on Instagram yesterday, writing, “One single voice of a cello solo has gotten the support of the entire world.
Music can be heard coming from the western part of the city’s Constitution Square, where the neoclassical Palace of Labour, built in 1914, now lies in ruins.
Amidst the war-torn streets of Kharkiv, Ukraine, an E minor piano melody by Ukrainian composer, Yury Vesnyak, named, Tenderness, rings through bullet-holed buildings.