Gideon Klein (born December 6, 1919, in Prerov, Moravia) was a prize-winning student at the Prague Conservatory when the German occupation of Czechoslovakia forced an end to his studies. With the advent of Nazi laws barring Jews from many professions, Klein’s career as a pianist also ended, although he managed to perform under an alias for a time. In December 1941, Klein was sent to Theresienstadt (Terezín), near Prague, and assigned to a hard labor brigade. Theresienstadt was an exception within the Nazi system, a “model ghetto” where for propaganda purposes the Germans allowed prisoners a relatively open and varied cultural life. Klein, stimulated by the presence of artists and intellectuals from all over occupied Europe, thrived for a while in this setting. Placed in charge of chamber music activities by the ghetto’s Freizeitgestaltung (Leisure-Time Authority), he turned his energies toward organizing concerts, performing, teaching, and composing.

Klein left Theresienstadt on a transport to Auschwitz in October 1944. He passed the selection process and was subsequently sent to the labor camp at Fürstengrube, where he died in January 1945. About a dozen of Klein’s Terezín compositions and arrangements survived the war. Of these, the brief choral piece “Spruch” (Verdict) has come to light only relatively recently. Written for and dedicated to Freizeitgestaltung Chairman Moritz Henschel on the occasion of his 65th birthday (February 21, 1944), the manuscript was preserved among Henschel’s papers. Together with other related documents and memorabilia, it now forms part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Givol Collection in Memory of Moritz and Hildegard Henschel.

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Further Reading/Listening:

Concentration Camp Songs

• The Soldiers of the Moor
  
• Dachau Song
  
• Stand Fast (Forward, You Witnesses)
  

Music of Protest

• Our Town Is Burning
  
• A Child of Our Time
  

Written in Hiding

• Over Yonder in the Sunshine
  

Partisan Songs

• At the Edge of a Forest
  
• Never Say That You Have Reached the Final Road
  

Ghetto Songs

• By the Ghetto Gate
  
• The Lonely Child
  
• Yisrolik
  
• There Lies Treblinka
  

Roma (Gypsies)

• Auschwitz
  

Songs of Jewish Displaced Persons

• David Boder collection
  
• Ben Stonehill
  
• We Long for a Home
  

Music in Theresienstadt

• Verdict
  

Individuals

• Aleksander Kulisiewicz
  
• Joseph Wulf
  
• Jankiel Herszkowicz