The Auschwitz violinist who reinvigorated Polish music
mainEarly in 1945, a starving survivor of the Auschwitz women’s orchestra saw a sign in Krakow reading ‘Polish Musicians Union’.
Helena Dunicz-Niwińska went inside to ask if anyone knew anything about her brother, who was also in the camps. A second sign led her into the office of the newly-founded Polish Music Publishers, PWM. She was hired on the spot and, for the next 30 years, she looked after producing scores by a new generation of Polish composers.
Helena died on June 12, aged 103.
Obituary here.
What a great story.
Indeed!
My Polish is too rusty to slog through that obit. DID anyone know anything about her brother?
Great lady. Poland has many gifted composers….. especially after Szymanowski introduced a more cosmopolitan approach to music, in spite of the parochial music life in Poland of the twenties and thirties.
Helena Dunicz Niwinska wrote a book about her experience in Birkenau in the “women’s orchestra”.
Her book can be obtained in English translation:
One of the Girls in the Band. The Memoirs of a Violinist from Birkenau. Transcribed by Maria Szewczyk. Translated from the Polish by William Brand.
Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, 2017 (ISBN 978-83-7704-078-2).
It can be ordered online here:
http://auschwitz.org/en/bookstoreproducts/product/one-of-the-girls-in-the-band-the-memoirs-of-a-violinist-from-birkenau,208.html#2