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The Inextinguishable Symphony: A True Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany
In the spring of 1933, more than 8,000 Jewish musicians, actors, and other artists were expelled from their positions with German orchestras, opera companies, and theater groups. Later that year, the Jdische Kulturbund, or Jewish Cultural Association, was created to allow Jewish artists to perform for Jewish audiences. Here is the riveting and emotional story of Gunther Goldschmidt and Rosemarie Gumpert, two courageous Jewish musicians who struggled to perform under unimaginable circumstances and found themselves falling in love in a country bent on destroying them.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
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April 29, 2013
5 stars, not so much for the writing, though it was good, but for the sheer persistence of the author, Martin Goldsmith to bare the roots and expose the branches of the tree that grew in his living room. This tree, which Goldsmith used metaphorically like families of alcoholics use the elephant plagued his childhood. I understand it. My mother lost her first husband in World War II. She married my father and never spoke much about her first love but I knew, just like Goldsmith knew, there was a story, one not told, that grew and grew and grew until it almost burst through the roof spewing its secrets over all.
Martin's father and mother, Gunther and Rosemarie were Jews living in Hitler's Germany in the 30's. Their story of survival was one that Martin longed to know but was not talked about. He wondered how his parents came to America and he wondered about the families they left behind. Happenstance brought both he and his father to Germany in 1992. His father seemed proud to show Martin where he grew up, where his own father's store had been, etc. This small start was the beginning of Martin asking questions and his father telling the story.
Inextinguishable Symphony is really three stories, three protagonists you might say. The first is the story of The Kulturbund, a cultural association that began in 1933 when Hitler was first Canceler; a ploy schemed to segregate the Jews but convince the world that these Jewish Germans were being treated well. Martin's father and mother, both fine musicians were chosen to play in this orchestra. Rosemarie was an accomplished violist and Gunther played the flute. The second story is the their love story; from their beginnings getting to know each other, then their marriage and early years as members of The Kulturbund, trying to take care of each other with the happenings around them and finally at last, their fortune to procure passports and passage to America. America, where Rosemarie would continue as a musician, where Gunther would give up his flute to support his family. America, free but not free from guilt as family members are not able to join them in their new homeland.
The third character, one that cannot be ignored, is the music. The music that kept his parents and their friends alive throughout the Hitler regime. I know little about classical music but I found myself seeking out the pieces and composers mentioned. In the beginning days of The Kulturbund the assembly was only allowed to play for Jews and certain composers were forbidden As time went on, the list of composers they could not play grew and grew. Imagine being denied the right to play Beethoven, Bach, Schumann, Wagner, Brahms. And the list continued to grow. I have yet to hear the work that prompted the title of the book "THE INEXTINGUISHABLE SYMPHONY" which prominent piece, Resurrection Symphony #2, Mahler. Exquisite.
Each story comes together to create the whole and though heart wrenching, there is beauty, peace and hope. The Inextinguishable Symphony lends itself well to book discussion. Questions arise as to paths taken, decisions made or those where there was little choice. One debatable point is the question of whether The Kulturbund was a blessing or a curse? Was it what kept many Jews alive or the vehicle that kept them from leaving Germany? For Goldsmith's parents it seemed what kept them alive. Some would disagree.
Martin Goldsmith gives us yet another story from the Holocaust, an important one, worth reading and more important, worth remembering.
Martin's father and mother, Gunther and Rosemarie were Jews living in Hitler's Germany in the 30's. Their story of survival was one that Martin longed to know but was not talked about. He wondered how his parents came to America and he wondered about the families they left behind. Happenstance brought both he and his father to Germany in 1992. His father seemed proud to show Martin where he grew up, where his own father's store had been, etc. This small start was the beginning of Martin asking questions and his father telling the story.
Inextinguishable Symphony is really three stories, three protagonists you might say. The first is the story of The Kulturbund, a cultural association that began in 1933 when Hitler was first Canceler; a ploy schemed to segregate the Jews but convince the world that these Jewish Germans were being treated well. Martin's father and mother, both fine musicians were chosen to play in this orchestra. Rosemarie was an accomplished violist and Gunther played the flute. The second story is the their love story; from their beginnings getting to know each other, then their marriage and early years as members of The Kulturbund, trying to take care of each other with the happenings around them and finally at last, their fortune to procure passports and passage to America. America, where Rosemarie would continue as a musician, where Gunther would give up his flute to support his family. America, free but not free from guilt as family members are not able to join them in their new homeland.
The third character, one that cannot be ignored, is the music. The music that kept his parents and their friends alive throughout the Hitler regime. I know little about classical music but I found myself seeking out the pieces and composers mentioned. In the beginning days of The Kulturbund the assembly was only allowed to play for Jews and certain composers were forbidden As time went on, the list of composers they could not play grew and grew. Imagine being denied the right to play Beethoven, Bach, Schumann, Wagner, Brahms. And the list continued to grow. I have yet to hear the work that prompted the title of the book "THE INEXTINGUISHABLE SYMPHONY" which prominent piece, Resurrection Symphony #2, Mahler. Exquisite.
Each story comes together to create the whole and though heart wrenching, there is beauty, peace and hope. The Inextinguishable Symphony lends itself well to book discussion. Questions arise as to paths taken, decisions made or those where there was little choice. One debatable point is the question of whether The Kulturbund was a blessing or a curse? Was it what kept many Jews alive or the vehicle that kept them from leaving Germany? For Goldsmith's parents it seemed what kept them alive. Some would disagree.
Martin Goldsmith gives us yet another story from the Holocaust, an important one, worth reading and more important, worth remembering.
April 13, 2020
A man's journey to uncover his parent's journey from Nazi Germany to the United States.
May 2, 2010
Here is my review of this wonderful book from the San Francisco Chronicle in 2001:
The Night Jewish Musicians Played Mahler Amid Nazi Terror
Reviewed by Steve Kettmann
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE INEXTINGUISHABLE SYMPHONY
A True Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany
By Martin Goldsmith
John Wiley & Sons; 352 pages; $24.95
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Holocaust has hovered on the periphery of the American imagination for so many decades now, it's hard to believe a book could come along at this point to burn a whole new perspective into our consciousness. But that's just what National Public Radio commentator Martin Goldsmith has done with this astonishing work, "The Inextinguishable Symphony: A True Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany."
For many, the single most important date to remember from the nightmare years of the Third Reich will always be Nov. 9, 1938, dubbed Kristallnacht by the Nazis, or the Night of Broken Glass, and called simply the November Pogrom by the Jews of Berlin. But anyone who surrenders to the narrative pull of Goldsmith's masterly work may be tempted to turn instead to Feb. 27, 1941.
That was the night, deep into the Nazi terror, when a group of Jewish musicians -- including Goldsmith's parents, Rosemarie and Guenther -- came together in Berlin and offered the city's Jewish community a spine-tingling performance of Gustav Mahler's Second Symphony. Their son, normally understated to a fault, calls the night a "miracle," and who are we to argue?
"For the next hour and twenty-five minutes, Gustav Mahler's Resurrection Symphony took possession of the theater, of the musicians, of the audience," Goldsmith writes. "No one, either on stage or in the hall, was conscious of time passing, just of an immense sound and an equally immense spirit moving among them. Rosemarie, whose practical mind did not usually acknowledge such phenomena, was dimly aware of someone or something in addition to (conductor) Rudolf Schwarz directing the proceedings.
"There were virtually no sounds -- coughs or sneezes or rustling with coats or hats -- coming from the crowd. More than a thousand people, men and women who had come to know danger and pain and hurt and humiliation on an almost daily basis for more than eight years, heard from a valiant ensemble of artists who had struggled along with them a vibrant musical account of their difficulties and then the infinitely hopeful message that they had not lived and suffered in vain and that from their depths they would rise again."
It sounds unbelievable. Preposterous, almost. And yet there does in fact exist in Berlin a monument to the so-called Kulturbund, which came about only because the Nazis thought it was useful first to segregate all Jewish cultural activities before opting for the Final Solution.
Many fine musicians and other artists did in fact offer their talents to the Kulturbund in hope that the best defense against ugliness was creating beauty. The hopefulness of that belief may have been tainted by the horrors of what Hitler and his henchmen unleashed on the world, but the bravery and grace of this small band of Jewish artists cannot and should not be overlooked.
As Schwarz, the conductor, told his musicians in May 1941 in what ended up as a final meeting: "All of us -- musicians, electricians, tailors, grocers, mothers and fathers -- need to be reminded that life is paramount. Even when it is stamped out, it eventually returns. Where there is life, there is spirit.
And where there is spirit, where there is even one human soul, there is music.
We are proof of that: We have suffered, yet we have endured. And we have made music."
Such sentiments might sound cloying delivered by voices who had not endured so much. Given the backdrop that Goldsmith lays out with such modesty, restraint and skill, the small triumph of these musicians feels like a triumph against the malignancy of spirit that colored wartime Europe -- and the entire 20th century.
Any such triumph has to be put in context, of course. Most of the musicians who performed Mahler's Resurrection Symphony that magical night in Berlin ended up dying in the camps. Goldsmith's parents were lucky enough to escape to America, but many other family members did not -- including, most hauntingly, his grandfather and uncle, who sailed to Cuba on the ill-fated St. Louis but ended up back in Europe because Cuba and the United States denied them entry.
Also, the legacy of the Kulturbund remains clouded. They were undeniably tools of the Nazis. The organization's fiery founder, Kurt Singer, went so far as to berate any musicians who were considering emigration, though he himself returned to Europe from a fund-raising trip to the United States and paid the ultimate price for his devil's bargain, dying at Theresienstadt in January 1944.
Still, at its heart, Goldsmith's tale is about people and their stories. He gives us a full, rich account of his parents' own love story, including his father's decision to return from Sweden, risking death, to play music, and yet never strays into self-indulgence or sentimentality.
The deep love and understanding of music that come through on every page are a true delight, and, if nothing else, this labor of love ensures that no one who has read it can ever listen to Mahler again with quite the same ear.
Steve Kettmann lives in Berlin. His work has appeared in the New Republic and Salon.
This article appeared on page RV - 5 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article...
The Night Jewish Musicians Played Mahler Amid Nazi Terror
Reviewed by Steve Kettmann
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE INEXTINGUISHABLE SYMPHONY
A True Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany
By Martin Goldsmith
John Wiley & Sons; 352 pages; $24.95
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Holocaust has hovered on the periphery of the American imagination for so many decades now, it's hard to believe a book could come along at this point to burn a whole new perspective into our consciousness. But that's just what National Public Radio commentator Martin Goldsmith has done with this astonishing work, "The Inextinguishable Symphony: A True Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany."
For many, the single most important date to remember from the nightmare years of the Third Reich will always be Nov. 9, 1938, dubbed Kristallnacht by the Nazis, or the Night of Broken Glass, and called simply the November Pogrom by the Jews of Berlin. But anyone who surrenders to the narrative pull of Goldsmith's masterly work may be tempted to turn instead to Feb. 27, 1941.
That was the night, deep into the Nazi terror, when a group of Jewish musicians -- including Goldsmith's parents, Rosemarie and Guenther -- came together in Berlin and offered the city's Jewish community a spine-tingling performance of Gustav Mahler's Second Symphony. Their son, normally understated to a fault, calls the night a "miracle," and who are we to argue?
"For the next hour and twenty-five minutes, Gustav Mahler's Resurrection Symphony took possession of the theater, of the musicians, of the audience," Goldsmith writes. "No one, either on stage or in the hall, was conscious of time passing, just of an immense sound and an equally immense spirit moving among them. Rosemarie, whose practical mind did not usually acknowledge such phenomena, was dimly aware of someone or something in addition to (conductor) Rudolf Schwarz directing the proceedings.
"There were virtually no sounds -- coughs or sneezes or rustling with coats or hats -- coming from the crowd. More than a thousand people, men and women who had come to know danger and pain and hurt and humiliation on an almost daily basis for more than eight years, heard from a valiant ensemble of artists who had struggled along with them a vibrant musical account of their difficulties and then the infinitely hopeful message that they had not lived and suffered in vain and that from their depths they would rise again."
It sounds unbelievable. Preposterous, almost. And yet there does in fact exist in Berlin a monument to the so-called Kulturbund, which came about only because the Nazis thought it was useful first to segregate all Jewish cultural activities before opting for the Final Solution.
Many fine musicians and other artists did in fact offer their talents to the Kulturbund in hope that the best defense against ugliness was creating beauty. The hopefulness of that belief may have been tainted by the horrors of what Hitler and his henchmen unleashed on the world, but the bravery and grace of this small band of Jewish artists cannot and should not be overlooked.
As Schwarz, the conductor, told his musicians in May 1941 in what ended up as a final meeting: "All of us -- musicians, electricians, tailors, grocers, mothers and fathers -- need to be reminded that life is paramount. Even when it is stamped out, it eventually returns. Where there is life, there is spirit.
And where there is spirit, where there is even one human soul, there is music.
We are proof of that: We have suffered, yet we have endured. And we have made music."
Such sentiments might sound cloying delivered by voices who had not endured so much. Given the backdrop that Goldsmith lays out with such modesty, restraint and skill, the small triumph of these musicians feels like a triumph against the malignancy of spirit that colored wartime Europe -- and the entire 20th century.
Any such triumph has to be put in context, of course. Most of the musicians who performed Mahler's Resurrection Symphony that magical night in Berlin ended up dying in the camps. Goldsmith's parents were lucky enough to escape to America, but many other family members did not -- including, most hauntingly, his grandfather and uncle, who sailed to Cuba on the ill-fated St. Louis but ended up back in Europe because Cuba and the United States denied them entry.
Also, the legacy of the Kulturbund remains clouded. They were undeniably tools of the Nazis. The organization's fiery founder, Kurt Singer, went so far as to berate any musicians who were considering emigration, though he himself returned to Europe from a fund-raising trip to the United States and paid the ultimate price for his devil's bargain, dying at Theresienstadt in January 1944.
Still, at its heart, Goldsmith's tale is about people and their stories. He gives us a full, rich account of his parents' own love story, including his father's decision to return from Sweden, risking death, to play music, and yet never strays into self-indulgence or sentimentality.
The deep love and understanding of music that come through on every page are a true delight, and, if nothing else, this labor of love ensures that no one who has read it can ever listen to Mahler again with quite the same ear.
Steve Kettmann lives in Berlin. His work has appeared in the New Republic and Salon.
This article appeared on page RV - 5 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article...
May 10, 2022
Uncovering family stories kept for decades, Martin Goldsmith joined a generation in recovering his parents' life in Europe before the Holocaust wiped out their families. Günther Goldschmidt and Rosemarie Gumpert were talented musicians, native Germans, whose skills were ghettoized by their government. They hardly ever spoke of how they escaped the Holocaust, until Martin helped his father tell their story in the 1990s.
The Inextinguishable Symphony also presents a fascinating look at the Kulturbund, a Nazi dispensation for Jewish artists to live and work in Germany as part of propaganda. Goldsmith's examination of the phenomenon is complex. The juxtaposition of soaring artistic achievement with the looming specter of genocide is unforgettable. It's raised many questions for me about the point of art, especially the place of creation amid human suffering. I keep circling back to those who played music as the Titanic sank. Is there virtue in such an act? (I believe there is, it's just taking me a while to be articulate about it.)
There is also less physical violence here than in many memoirs of Nazi Germany that I've read, perhaps because Günther and Rosemarie left in 1941. Yet, the emotional complexity of the choices in their lives are extremely heavy to bear as a reader, as it should be.
The story has been adapted into a film, Winter Journey (2019). It is not easily available to watch, but I hope to see it someday.
The Inextinguishable Symphony also presents a fascinating look at the Kulturbund, a Nazi dispensation for Jewish artists to live and work in Germany as part of propaganda. Goldsmith's examination of the phenomenon is complex. The juxtaposition of soaring artistic achievement with the looming specter of genocide is unforgettable. It's raised many questions for me about the point of art, especially the place of creation amid human suffering. I keep circling back to those who played music as the Titanic sank. Is there virtue in such an act? (I believe there is, it's just taking me a while to be articulate about it.)
There is also less physical violence here than in many memoirs of Nazi Germany that I've read, perhaps because Günther and Rosemarie left in 1941. Yet, the emotional complexity of the choices in their lives are extremely heavy to bear as a reader, as it should be.
The story has been adapted into a film, Winter Journey (2019). It is not easily available to watch, but I hope to see it someday.
September 29, 2008
"Where there is life, there is spirit. And where there is spirit, where there is even one human soul, there is music." P. 282 "And I am so proud of them [his parents] and so grateful to them for showing me what is truly important, for showing me that you must love the people and things that are important to you and that you must sometimes risk everything for that love. There is no finer lesson for parents to teach their children." P. 248 "Silence in the face of crimes committed may be regarded as a form of participation therein—equally punishable whether committed by individuals or by nations." P. 181 Martin Goldsmith tells the history of his parents and their escape from Nazi Germany. They belonged to the Judische Kulturbund, a cultural arts group for Jews, by Jews, tolerated (and controlled) by the Nazis so they could show the rest of the world they were treating the Jews well. I have read many 'holocaust' books, but this one taught me something new. This lovely family, never suspecting what was to come, lived life as best they could under the circumstances, ever believing that things could not possibly get any worse. You will especially enjoy this book if you have been transcended by beautiful music, either as a participant or a spectator/audience.
September 17, 2023
I thought this was an amazing book. A very very sad but story but such an interesting one to read about. It gave me an insight into an unfamiliar part of a period of history that I’ve studied a lot and really demonstrated how powerful music can be. I wasn’t keen on the writing style in a few places- it sort of became a little repetitive- which is the reason for 4 stars. But otherwise great!
January 23, 2016
This is quite a moving story of the author's family escaping (in some cases not escaping) from the Nazis, of love of music, and many other great elements. So it really has no excuse for being SO BORING! I'm talking about the audiobook here, which was read by the author, who reads in a very soothing way that makes you just want to sleep. He's an NPR contributor, so you know the kind of voice. But the story itself is so slow-paced. Maybe the author was too close to the material, since it's about his own family and how it was possible for him even to be born, but still, some editor needed to cut this down and make it a lot more punchy. It is moving at times, and it's a good story to have read, so still maybe worth it, but a bit of a slog while reading.
June 17, 2017
This book is well-researched and expertly written by Martin Goldsmith, one of the voices for NPR, about the lives of his parents. Both musicians, they were a part of the Kulturbund, which provided a creative outlet for the Jews in Hitler's Germany both as performers and as spectators. Fortunately, the Goldsmiths were able to emigrate to the United States right before Jews were taken to concentration camps. Even though they tried to sponsor other family members to come to America, the Goldsmiths were unsuccessful. They experienced survivor's guilt after finding out they were too late. This book, recommended to me by a friend who is an extensive reader, says it is one of his favorite books.
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June 12, 2021Because this book was written from the perspective of a son researching his Jewish parents' lives in Nazi Germany, I learned many things I'd not known about German Jews, even through my extensive reading on this period of history. This is well worth the read because of the accounts of personal day-to-day occurrences that shaped the lives of Jews who had not (yet) been deported to the camps and ghettos. The book is generally about hope, but my stomach turned several times as I read about the horrors inflicted on his family. And being a musician myself, I empathized deeply with the flutist and violist who fell in love and survived the Holocaust because of their talents.
February 25, 2024
Heartbreaking family history of the author's parents, who were musicians who barely excaped from Nazi Germany. It also serves as a history of the Jewish cultural organizations that the Nazis set up as showpieces for the Nazi regime. The author recognizes the difficult issues that arose - the organizations provided great comfort for Jews in Germany, but did it lull them into a sense of false security? I felt the author kept a good balance between his parents' story (and the story of their families) and the author's own researches for the book.
Narrated by the author, who is a host on SiriusXM's Symphony Hall.
Narrated by the author, who is a host on SiriusXM's Symphony Hall.
June 5, 2019
Excellent book that is very well written. For anyone with more of a musical background than I, it would be even more meaningful. The book begins early in the Nazi years and for that reason is a very good study in the insidious, gradual erosion of rights and humanity endured by the Jewish people.
Just like 9/11, we must never forget the Holocaust.
"I wonder if, as he lay dying in the cold of Terezin, he ever awoke from his dream to face the bitter truth that beauty outlasts, but doesn't always win."
Just like 9/11, we must never forget the Holocaust.
"I wonder if, as he lay dying in the cold of Terezin, he ever awoke from his dream to face the bitter truth that beauty outlasts, but doesn't always win."
March 1, 2024
This is the fascinating true story of a son’s discovery of his parent’s past. They were Jewish Germans who joined the Jewish Culture Association, joining 8,000 actors, dancers and musicians. Denied work, expelled from German orchestras and operas - they joined Jewish artists to perform for Jewish audiences. There is a lot of research that was done and sometimes the author bores the reader with a deluge of facts. Gunther (flute) and Rosemarie (flute) fall in love and marry while playing in the orchestra that the Nazi’s have created for propaganda purposes. With the benefit of knowledge, it is hard to read about the devotion to playing music and the desire to stay in Germany without thinking how naïve they were about what was in store for the Jews in Germany. But Germany was their homeland and they could not conceive of what was to come. Their fate, and the fate of other family members are a story that I had not heard before, told in great detail by a the son who learned about this family history later in life. It is a testament to the devotion to music in horrible times.
July 20, 2025
Absolutely incredible. As someone who loves to learn about the Holocaust, I can only bow my head and close my eyes in respect to the victims and their families. The stories of artists’ love for music is something I deeply relate to and I am forever grateful for a chance to read this book. I highly recommend and will be reading again very soon.
July 10, 2014
Martin Goldsmith's "The Inextinguishable Symphony is alternately inspiring, horrifying, very moving, and terribly sad. Goldsmith's book is both a biography of his parents, Jewish musicians who performed in Germany in the 1930s and early 1940s and a history of an organization called the Judische Kulturbund, a cultural organization created by German Jews and sanctioned by the Nazis as a way to keep German cultural activities "pure" while reaping the propaganda benefits of allowing German Jews to have a cultural life. More than 200 Jewish musicians, actors, writers, and other artists were employed and protected by their participation in the Kulturbund. (Goldsmith credits his parents' participation with providing them with the connections to get them out of Germany and saving their lives.)
Goldsmith also provides, through his father's voice, a horrifying tale of what it meant to be Jewish in Germany in the early days of Hitler's reign. This material was not unfamiliar to me, but the level of detail the author provides and the picture he paints is particularly chilling.
The saddest parts of the story deal with the family members who were not musicians, and did not get out. Goldsmith's grandfather and uncle were in fact passengers on the German refugee ship St. Louis, which was turned away from Cuba and had to return to Europe. The Goldschmidts ended up in France, and ultimately back in Germany in a concentration camp. The "survivor's guilt" felt in particular by Martin Goldsmith's father was life changing for the family.
It's also worth noting that Goldsmith, an NPR commentator with a background as a music critic, takes great pains to discuss the importance of the music his parents and the Kulturbund orchestras played, and the impact that music had an its exclusively Jewish audience. Some of the sections read like program notes at the symphony, and they are excellent.
This book is hard to read and at the same time hard to put down. To say it is powerful seems an understatement.
Goldsmith also provides, through his father's voice, a horrifying tale of what it meant to be Jewish in Germany in the early days of Hitler's reign. This material was not unfamiliar to me, but the level of detail the author provides and the picture he paints is particularly chilling.
The saddest parts of the story deal with the family members who were not musicians, and did not get out. Goldsmith's grandfather and uncle were in fact passengers on the German refugee ship St. Louis, which was turned away from Cuba and had to return to Europe. The Goldschmidts ended up in France, and ultimately back in Germany in a concentration camp. The "survivor's guilt" felt in particular by Martin Goldsmith's father was life changing for the family.
It's also worth noting that Goldsmith, an NPR commentator with a background as a music critic, takes great pains to discuss the importance of the music his parents and the Kulturbund orchestras played, and the impact that music had an its exclusively Jewish audience. Some of the sections read like program notes at the symphony, and they are excellent.
This book is hard to read and at the same time hard to put down. To say it is powerful seems an understatement.
January 19, 2013
Wow! This book was so interesting. The author tells the story of his parents and their participation as musicians in the Jewish Culture Association during the time of Nazi Germany leading up to WWII, and how their participation in the Association most-likely saved their lives. The book is interesting because it is so many different types of books at once. A little bit of it is like this man's personal memoirs. Part of it is tracing his family history back a few generations. Some of it talks about the general world history of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party coming to power. And some of it was very specific history about an organization that I'd never even heard of before. The Association was actually sponsored by the Nazis to use as propaganda showing the world that the Jews' situation was not all that bad in Germany. Similar, in a way, to our own country's past "separate but equal" treatment of African Americans. The difference is that African Americans position was "progressing" in society up from slavery to being equal citizens, but Jews' position was degrading from equal treatment into slavery. I never realized the steps of how that occurred in the German society at that time. I definitely learned a lot of history reading this book, and yet it had the very personal touch that kept it from feeling anything like a college textbook. I definitely would recommend this book.
May 30, 2016
I don't know how my daughter reads so many books about the Holocaust. They leave me despressed and discouraged.
The author of this book is married to a woman I hike with. We're doing it as a book club selection and the author is coming to our discussion in 2 months. It should be an interesting discussion. It's such a personal account of life in Nazi Germany and the effect living through persecution has on family members.
I haven't read a whole lot of Holocaust literature, but this one certainly addresses head on, in the final chapters especially, the issue of whether the Jews reacted appropriately. Did the Kulterbund, a Jewish-only performance art society managed by the Nazis, help people survive or did it just prevent more people from escaping Germany and thereby increase the death toll. There is no good answer to that question.
We're in the middle of a Presidential election season, and the parallels between the Nazis and Donald Trump's Muslim-fearing, Mexican-hating, wall-building approach to people who are different is scary and sad.
"Music is Life, and life Life, inextinguishable."
Carl Nielsen
The author of this book is married to a woman I hike with. We're doing it as a book club selection and the author is coming to our discussion in 2 months. It should be an interesting discussion. It's such a personal account of life in Nazi Germany and the effect living through persecution has on family members.
I haven't read a whole lot of Holocaust literature, but this one certainly addresses head on, in the final chapters especially, the issue of whether the Jews reacted appropriately. Did the Kulterbund, a Jewish-only performance art society managed by the Nazis, help people survive or did it just prevent more people from escaping Germany and thereby increase the death toll. There is no good answer to that question.
We're in the middle of a Presidential election season, and the parallels between the Nazis and Donald Trump's Muslim-fearing, Mexican-hating, wall-building approach to people who are different is scary and sad.
"Music is Life, and life Life, inextinguishable."
Carl Nielsen
May 2, 2011
This incredible story underscores the importance of happenstance in our lives. Martin Goldsmith tells the story of his parents, and grandparents and how music saved some of them. But in doing so he tells the more insidious story of how that same music may have doomed other Jews. By giving an air of normalcy to Nazi decrees, by continuing to put on the Kulturebund, did those artists unknowingly give a degree of consent to what was happening around them? Nowhere does Mr. Goldsmith suggest that the German Jews used the arts as a conduit to freedom, or protest. And when reading this book it is hard to believe, with my near perfect hindsight, that with each new edict the Jews would just sit back, and think that it could not get any worse. We who look back, know that it did get worse, becoming a stain on humanity that can never be erased. Can any perfectly rendered Mahler symphony serve as a fitting backdrop for trains heading East?
June 18, 2012
A different take on the Jewish experience prior to WWII from a man whose parents belonged to the Kulturbund, a cultural refuge of sorts. Goldman intersperses a history of his family (and what he can piece together of the missing parts) with the history of the Kulturbund, resulting in a slower-paced, but still fascinating look at an aspect of Nazi Germany that I hadn't encountered before. The view into the machinations and propaganda that actually supported the artists (including musicians, dancers, actors, and singers), as well as a description of what happened with the St. Louis (the ship of Jewish refugees that was refused landing by Cuba and the U.S.), was worth the time spent.
April 29, 2012
Beautifully written, this is a true story written by a son (NPR music expert) about his parents and their experience as Jewish musicians in Nazi Germany. The book starts with Gunther and Rosemarie as budding musicians in Germany during the very beginnings of the Nazi rule, and their involvement in the Nazi approved Jewish Orchestra which kept them alive. This book gives new insight into how Hitler's rule slowly and steadily crept into the lives of German Jews, against the background of timeless music which makes the telling all the more intimate and real.
March 30, 2010
A beautiful love story, a testimony to the power and solace of music, and a beautiful tribute to Martin Goldsmith's parents. This book could open up meaningful discussions about the power of unbridled hate, the importance of love, and the need for each person to have something bigger than himself to hang on in the face of fear and hardship. It illuminated a chapter in the story of the Holocaust that is not well-known.
gave-up-on
December 31, 2011Interesting,but dense with lots of names, dates, and musical references that I'm mostly unfamiliar with. Plan to finish but it may take me a while.
November 14, 2015
This was an amazing and touching book. The power of music to lift us up in any situation - just amazing.
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October 23, 2021Nonfiction account of the family of Martin Goldsmith’s (a senior commentator for NPR)—his father and mother (Gunter Goldschmidt and Rosemarie Gumpert) both talented musicians who met by chance and were invited to play for the Kulturbund, an all Jewish orchestra allowed to exist under very controlled circumstances during Hitler’s rise to power and until it became no longer useful to the Nazi’s in 1941. When the orchestra was disbanded, the remaining members, those who had not fled Germany, were rounded up and sent to concentration camps. Gunter and Rosemarie had managed to escape to the US where they began life anew. Unfortunately, their parents and other relatives were left behind, most dying in in labor and concentration camps. Their pleas for help sent to Gunter and Rosemarie haunted the couple throughout their life. Decades later the pros and cons of the Kubu orchestra were argued, some saying they played into the hands of the Nazis. Goldsmith writes, “by allowing the Nazis to use the organization as a propaganda tool,” it lent a much-needed aura of legitimacy to the party. “And worse still, by providing music, theater, films, lectures—above all a sense of community—did the Kulturbund foster an atmosphere of normalcy that discouraged emigration until it became too late to consider action.”
December 14, 2018
Martin Goldsmith, NPR, first host of Performance Today, tells his parents' story, growing up, meeting, enduring the early days of the Nazi takeover of Germany, including Kristallnacht. Gunther, his father, was raised in a family who happened to be Jewish, but totally non-observant. It is also the story of the Judische Kulterbund (Kubu) that I knew nothing about. Jewish musicians and artists were "invited" under Joseph Goebbels' supervision, to form their own orchestras, theater groups, lecture societies, beginning in 1933. Since Jews were being dismissed from all these German organizations, it allowed careers, (though forcing them into cultural ghettos) that "proved" how the Nazis were providing for the culture and protection of Jews. It's a harrowing story, made almost magic because Goldsmith knows how to describe rehearsals and performances. There are names, now almost forgotten, of performers and conductors. My only reservation is Martin's details of his parents' courtship: we know that Gunther told Martin his story late in life, then having to do with the music, the fear, the journey to America. How he and Rosemarie fell in love...well, it's a little purple-prosed, though forgiveable.
August 30, 2020
This is an excellent book. Well and thoroughly researched, and beautifully written, The Inextinguishable Symphony tells the true story of a family of Jewish classical musicians living in Nazi Germany during the 1930’s-40’s. Detailing the Nazis' ever-increasing restrictions on Jews in society—including the devastating “Night of Broken Glass” (Kristallnacht)—it relates the eight year history of the Jüdischer Kulturbund, the only organization the Nazis allowed to provide cultural entertainment (e.g., opera, symphony, theater, and film) to the Jews of Germany. We get to know two generations of the author’s family, his grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, as they play with various orchestras, all the while deciding whether, and then attempting, to emigrate from Germany. In particular, we get to know the author’s parents and their story of love and artistic fulfillment during very dark and terrifying times. A must read for anyone interested in European history, day-to-day life in Nazi Germany before the war, and/or classical music.
June 17, 2024
Alex Goldsmith was silent about his life, but his son Martin, in his determination to learn his family history, the stories of earlier generations of musicians who lived under the heavy, hateful arm of Nazi Germany and escaped or didn’t . . ., sought out his father and many others. This book is the result.
The focal point was the Kulturbund, a place and people of culture (music, theater, oratory) called for by the Reich as a propaganda tool: Look at how well we are treating the Jews. It was to be a “Jewish cultural organization” allowing only Jewish art.
“. . . For as long as I can, I must continue to make beautiful music. In an ugly time, the best protest is music” (Rudolf Schwartz).
“. . . All of us — musicians, electricians, tailors, grocers, mothers, fathers — need to be reminded that life is paramount. Even when it is stamped out, it eventually returns. When there is life, there is spirit. And where there is spirit, where there is even one human soul, there is music. We are proof of that. And we have made music” (Rudolf Schwarz).
The focal point was the Kulturbund, a place and people of culture (music, theater, oratory) called for by the Reich as a propaganda tool: Look at how well we are treating the Jews. It was to be a “Jewish cultural organization” allowing only Jewish art.
“. . . For as long as I can, I must continue to make beautiful music. In an ugly time, the best protest is music” (Rudolf Schwartz).
“. . . All of us — musicians, electricians, tailors, grocers, mothers, fathers — need to be reminded that life is paramount. Even when it is stamped out, it eventually returns. When there is life, there is spirit. And where there is spirit, where there is even one human soul, there is music. We are proof of that. And we have made music” (Rudolf Schwarz).
January 28, 2025
I am always amazed that there are still so many things to learn about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. This book looks specifically into the Jewish music culture during Hitler's rise to power. I learned that the arts were allowed to continue (in a very controlled way) because the Nazi's were using it for positive propaganda. Because of this, many of the musicians were able to emigrate and escape the fate of so many other Jewish people. This story specifically follows the parents and grandparents of the author, Martin Goldsmith, and while his parents made it to America and started a new life, there were still so many people in their lives that perished in Germany. I am always horrified to learn of all the things these people went through at the hands of the Nazis, but I am glad people are continuing to tell their stories so we may never forget.
February 23, 2019
I loved this book. It is in a category by itself. It is definitely about the holocaust but not like any of the many other holocaust books that i have read. It is a personal love story and a lovely homage from the author to his parents. He is very honest about their strengths and weaknesses and how they dealt with their situation in Germany and what happened to them and their family. Music is at the center of his life and during his book research he realized how central music was to their youth days and how music saved them.
Don't start this book unless you have time to finish it, i have given up some sleep to get finished. I immediately went back to the very beginning which connects to the very end, as all wonderful books do. Enjoy!! Through your tears.
Don't start this book unless you have time to finish it, i have given up some sleep to get finished. I immediately went back to the very beginning which connects to the very end, as all wonderful books do. Enjoy!! Through your tears.
November 22, 2020
Frustrating to hear first-hand accounts of the rise of Nazism over many years, how so many didn't recognize the evil it represented or refused to stand up against it. But nice to hear how music sustained so many Jews. Only Jews were allowed to attend and they weren't allowed to play music from German (and eventually Austrian) composers in this Jewish Cultural Association, whose creation the Germans deceptively permitted. The rules imposed upon the cultural association by the government were laughable and enraging. The tyranny of government, its control over the individual, and the complicit participation by businesses and society is astounding. I've never understood the motivation behind it, but that is because it is completely irrational.
June 21, 2018
Goldsmith has written a moving and revealing account of how his parents met in Nazi Germany and were saved by the Jewish Kulturbund, which I had not known about it. It is harrowing and painful to read of the ever-narrowing restrictions placed upon Jews and how this Jewish Cultural Association was used as a propaganda tool. And yet the ability to play music did save them and other Jewish musicians, on several levels, for some years. I am very glad I read the print version so I could see all of the wonderful photos. Goldsmith did exhaustive research to piece together this dramatic history of his parents' lives.
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