Pittsburgh play Holocaust camp

Pittsburgh play Holocaust camp

main

norman lebrecht

May 23, 2016

Several members of the Pittsburgh Symphony are giving up one of their two days off in a gruelling fortnight’s tour to play a concert of music by composers persecuted and killed by the Nazis.

The May 22 concert at the Theresienstadt (Terezin) camp will consist of works by Schulhoff, Ullmann and Korngold.

Up to 50 members of the orchestra are expected to attend. Details here.

clarion quartet

The Clarion Quartet of the PSO: Tatjana Mead Chamis, Jennifer Orchard, Marta Krechkovsky, Bronwyn Banerdt
PHOTO BY JIM JUDKIS

Comments

  • Peter says:

    You’re having a laugh if you think American orchestras make ‘gruelling tours’. Perhaps talk to the Philharmonia or the RPO for the definition of gruelling.

  • Joe Shirk says:

    A great gesture by dedicated professional musicians to remember the ” forbidden music” and their composites by performing their music at this site.

  • someone says:

    Whenever I get to see this kind of things, I envy Jews.
    I’m not twisting anything, I just mean it literally.

    They got the Nazis to pay for what they’ve done to Jews, but Koreans have never truly got the ones, who did even worse things, to pay for what they’ve done.

    • Dave T says:

      “Paid”, yeah, I just hope they got a receipt.
      What a ridiculous post.

      • someone says:

        [ pay for ]

        http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/pay-for-sth

        “pay for sth” in British English
        – phrasal verb with pay

        to be punished for doing something bad to someone else, or to suffer because of a mistake that you made:

        . We all pay for our mistakes in some way at some time.
        . He tricked me and I’m going to make him pay for it!

        —————————————————————————-

        Whenever I get to see this kind of things, I envy Jews.
        I’m not being sarcastic, I just mean it literally.

        They made the Nazis pay for what they did to Jews, but Koreans have never truly made the ones, who did even worse things, pay for what they’ve done.

        What is your problem with it, David?

        • someone says:

          Oh, your name is Dave, not David.
          Anyway, let me know what your problem is, Dave.

          • Dave T says:

            Germany, nor anyone else, can never pay for what it did to the Jews. A couple of music performances (though, honestly, Germany has done a lot more than that in memory of the Jews she murdered) is beneath trivial as a form of “payment” or punishment or whatever your point is.

            And no, Japan did unspeakable things to Korea, China, and others, but it is not “worse” than the mechanized attempted extermination of an entire people that Germany undertook.

          • someone says:

            1. In my comments here, ‘pay for’ means ‘be punished for their crimes’.

            If you had had problems to understand what ‘pay for’ meant, that was your problem.
            Now, you should’ve understood what it means as I clearly showed it by quoting the Cambridge dictionary.

            So don’t mention it any more.

            2. However, I’ve never said that it was enough.

            I just said that I envied Jewish people because at least, they could make the Nazis get punished.

            In Korea, do you know how many people, who collaborated with the Japanese Nazis, were punished?
            None, not even one.

            And you might know how the Japanese Nazis were treated, pardoned and whitewashed by the American government.
            As a result of it, they are still everywhere holding prominent positions and still justify the Yasukuni shrine worship.

            3. Japan did ‘unspeakable things’ to many of the Asian countries and the people as you said.

            The Japanese Nazis’ crimes involve murder, genocide, raping children, exploitation, official and deliberate attempts to obliterate the culture and language, distorting and erasing the history, extremely cruel medical experiments on living human bodies, forced labour, drafting people into the Japanese military by force, etc, etc…

            I don’t know what I’ve missed here, but I don’t want to think about it any more.
            They’d done those things for 36 years + more in Asia.

            Plus, there are some more things such as forced sexual slavery carried by the Japanese government and the military during World War 2 and they finally murdered many of the victims to erase the evidence of their crimes.
            It is estimated there were around 200,000 victims.

            Innocent young Korean girls, including many teenagers and even children, were the majority and the rest were Chinese + other Asian girls + some Western girls.
            According to some of the victims still alive, when she was taken from home by force and was first raped in the battlefield that Japan caused, she felt that the whole world turned upside down and she was raped 20-50 times per day for 2 years.
            And of course, there are a lot more crimes than these, even after the war.

            Is that why I said ‘worse’ ?
            Not really.
            I don’t wanna compete(?) or compare which is worse than the other, being killed in the Holocaust? or being raped 20 – 50 times per day for 2 years?
            That’s not the real point here.

            The worse and worst thing is that it’s not finished and they’ve even been playing the victim.
            The descendants of the collaborators ( for example, the Korean President now ) and The descendants of the Japanese Nazis ( for example, the current Japanese prime minister ) have never truly regret their parents’ and grandparents’ crimes, although they were given many, many chances.

            Contrary to the real victims’ wishes, they have constantly been trying to change the history and conceal the truth.
            They are doing basically the same things as what their parents and grandparents did.
            It is just one example and a tiny fraction of the huge iceberg.
            The criminals are still alive and their crimes haven’t ended yet.

            I have to see this every single day.
            That’s why I said I envied Jewish people.
            At least, they can talk about these things freely and no one objects or says that the Holocaust was fake.
            And no one in the world says to them to forget or to shut up.
            Yeah, they are some crazy people saying that, but mostly, they are not leaders of the society.

            In France, maybe in the UK and Israel, and even in Germany, if anyone insults a victim of Nazis’ crime, they will be punished.
            In Japan and Korea?
            Not really.

            They are still doing it for generations and we, Koreans are still living under the control of the traitors and the criminals whereas you are not, I guess.

            I’m pissed off to be told that those are things of the past, just forget.
            I’ve seen more than so many saying like that to Korean and Chinese people.
            They were mostly Western people.
            You know, that’s why I said ‘the ones’ at first, instead of saying ‘the Japanese Nazis’.
            I’m glad that at least, you didn’t say so.

            I envy that Norman can post this kind of things as much as he wants without worrying about ridiculous backlash or harassment.

            Some years ago, a Korean composer refused to receive a prize that commemorates a composer who collaborated with the Japanese Nazis (whether he wanted or not, it is true that he did).
            It was a huge scandal.
            At that time, I was so surprised once again to see that still, how hard it is to be against it.
            It’s truly ‘Alice in Wonderland’.
            So I couldn’t help saying that I envied jews when I saw this posting.
            It’s not the first time to feel this way, but I just never said it.

            If you still want to say that the word ‘worse’ is not appropriate, I’ll leave it up to you, whatever you think, but you also should leave it up to me, whatever I think.

          • M2N2K says:

            In the same comment, “someone”, you said that you “don’t wanna compete(?) or compare which is worse than the other” but then concluded that you want to “leave it up to” you whether the word ‘worse’ was “appropriate”, implying that you think it is. Well, if you don’t want to compare, than don’t. The crimes you have listed are terrible, and if you take all of those horrible crimes without exception and add to them extermination of nearly half of all Jews who were alive in the entire world at that time, then you will be getting close to what Holocaust means to Jewish people. In any case, envy is a very destructive and unproductive emotion that is only a tiny step away from hate. That is why envy is a major factor contributing to antisemitism which has been victimizing Jews for millennia and is continuing to do so.

          • someone says:

            M2N2K,

            You have completely wrong ideas about what I said.

            I clearly said what things of Jewish people I envied and why I said this.
            Do I have to say it once again?

            1. As I already explained, Jewish people made the German Nazis to be punished for their crimes.
            I think there were Jewish collaborators, too, but they must have been punished as well, as long as it was discovered.

            I envy the fact that they made it happen and the fact that they were united on that matter and the fact that they made it known to the world.
            As a result of it, they can talk about it without worrying about ridiculous backlashes.

            If you can’t understand what I’m saying about, just have a look at the comments on any articles about the Japanese Nazis’ crimes in English.
            Koreans couldn’t do it and didn’t do it, so now the results are shown in and outside the country.

            ‘Envy’ is not the same term as ‘being jealous’.
            So don’t get confused.
            In my comment, It was used 100% as a compliment, but nothing else.

            I’m quoting the Collins dictionary.

            [ envy ]
            . verb
            If you envy someone, you wish that you had the same things or qualities that they have.

            [ jealous ]
            . adjective
            If you are jealous of another person’s possessions or qualities, you feel angry or bitter because you do not have them.

            I’m not jealous of Jewish people.
            I’m not angry or bitter.
            But I envy them because I wish Korean people had the qualities that the Jewish people had.

            2. I said that I didn’t wanna compete(?) or compare which was worse than the other, being killed in the Holocaust or being raped 20-50 times per day for 2 years.

            But the worse things I said mean that :
            1. Germany has not been denying or whitewashing their faults and crimes, whereas Japan has constantly been doing it.
            2. Germany has been teaching their children the truth, whereas Japan has never been doing it properly.
            3. Germany has never been trying to change the history, whereas Japan has constantly been doing it.
            4. Germany has never insulted the victims, whereas Japan has constantly been doing it.
            5. Germany has banned Nazi symbols including the swastika, whereas Japan still uses it everywhere, for example, even in the Olympic games and World Cup.

            Thousands of Korean people, including me, emailed the IOC and FIFA to ban it, but they blocked it and ignored.
            Later, they said that it had no problems at all, but they don’t allow the German Nazi symbols.

            Two days ago, the Japanese navy’s battleship entered a Korean harbour fluttering the so-called Rising Sun flag which was the symbol of the Japanese Nazis, as usual.

            I can’t even write down all the things what they did and are still doing for the past 70 + more years after the war.

            I’m not comparing the crimes committed by Germany and Japan during the war, both were totally cruel and wholly disgusting needless to say and they were both organised crimes by the government and military.

            But I’m comparing the things they did after the war that are not very well known to the rest of the world.
            So I talked about it more in detail not to confuse him and I’m talking about it even more in detail for you.
            But if anyone thinks those things are not very serious problems, how can I change their thoughts?

            Even though I’m comparing those extremely different moves of the 2 countries after the war, I’ve often wondered if Germany would be like this, if Jewish people didn’t make enough efforts to make it happen.
            In comparison to that, Korean people couldn’t do it, but also I think that not everyone tried hard enough.

            That’s why I envy Jewish people.

          • M2N2K says:

            No matter how benign your definition of your “envy” is, that unpleasant feeling still remains predominantly, if not fully, negative and does not become any more constructive and/or productive. If you manage to channel it into something closer to “admiration” or at least “appreciation” leading to “desire to learn (from)”, then you would be moving in the right direction. Your continuous attempts to compare the two tragic stories reveal that you are badly misinformed and/or woefully ignorant about what the totality of Holocaust experience really was, even for those who were lucky enough to survive it. If you learn about it in a more comprehensive fashion, you will see that your “comparisons” can only hurt your cause. Good luck!

          • someone says:

            Definitions of a word could differ.
            Sometimes, even one word has many different meanings.

            And even such words like ‘amazing’, ‘wonderful’, ‘fantastic’, that usually express extremely positive meanings, are often used to mean something very negative, if they are used in cynical or sarcastic ways.

            You seem to have very negative ideas about ‘envy’, but as I already said, I see that ‘envy’ is different from ‘being jealous’, and I clearly said what aspect and meaning of the word I wanted to express.
            So don’t try to expand it into something negative any more that I’ve clearly rejected.
            Just stick to the meaning and definition that the quotation of the dictionary suggests.
            That’s exactly what I want to mean.
            Nothing less, nothing more.

            Actually, ‘envy’ already includes a sense of admiration, too. (It could also depend on how it is used, but usually, one will never envy what she/he dislikes or what she/he thinks horrible.)
            However, why I’d prefer to use ‘envy’ than ‘admire’ for this is that I envy not only their abilities or political and social powers that made it possible, but I envy the circumstance after the war, too.
            You don’t usually admire situations or circumstances.

            I mean that the Jewish people and other European countries had a bond of sympathy, but we didn’t.
            In Asia, the countries still had to fight with something else in and outside countries.
            We weren’t able to do that.

            And you don’t need to worry if I was misinformed about the Holocaust.
            Never, at all.
            I’m just talking about this.

            I’ll make 3 examples.

            There are 3 criminals who killed somebody.

            1. A criminal who killed an innocent girl by mistake,
            but he got punished for it and he truly feels sorry for the victim.

            2. A criminal who killed an innocent girl because he was bad.
            He got punished for it and he feels sorry now and admits the truth that he was wrong.

            3. A criminal who killed an innocent girl because he was bad.
            However, he’s never really been punished for it and he has never ever felt sorry or regret about his fault.
            On the contrary, he’s been trying to distort the truth constantly and is now even playing a victim and still insults her and her family.

            They all committed the same crimes and the results are the same that the victims are all dead.
            But which is the worst?
            One can tell.

            It’s about intention and mind.
            That’s what I was comparing and talking about.

            You’ll never know how and how many Western people have criticised Korean people for not forgiving or forgetting.
            And you’ll never know how it feels.

            However, if one thinks that it’s not a very serious problem, how can I change them?
            There’ll be no more things I can do about it.

  • MOST READ TODAY: