andy bell

This month marks the anniversary of the birth of Ilse Weber, born in January 1903, an accomplished poet, songwriter and writer sent to the Terezin concentration camp in Czechoslovakia in 1942, and murdered in Auschwitz two years later..

Her eldest son, Hanus, was one of the children rescued from the Nazis by Nicholas Winton and survived the holocaust. Her youngest, Tommy, went with her, first into the Prague ghetto and then to the camp.

There she worked as a nurse with Jewish children until October 1944, when she was one of the last prisoners sent to Auschwitz. She wasn’t assigned to go – but the children she was looking after were, as were her husband Willi and her son Tommy, and she insisted on accompanying them. She and Tommy were gassed on arrival.

One of the songs she composed in Terezin was simply called ‘Lullaby’and Willi, who survived Auschwitz, revealed later that she was singing it to Tommy as they were led away to the gas chamber. It was sung by Anne Sofie von Otter at a Festival Hall concert of music from the camp in 2009 and I was privileged to be there.

The Guardian reviewer at the time wrote that: “There may have been a dry eye in the house after Von Otter’s serenely compassionate rendition, but I couldn’t tell.”

Nor could I.

You can hear it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNMziun2QMA

This is why we are anti-fascists…

Originally posted online 5 February 2022