Concentration Camp Music: New Documents from Prague

by Francesco Lotoro

There are moments in research that finally give meaning to the economic efforts and toil; the search for musical material produced in civilian and military captivity from the rise of National Socialism (1933) to the death of Joseph Stalin (1953) has never been easy nor immune from unforeseen events and accidents.

Determination and perseverance acquire greater value when they benefit a territory, a city, or a region; in recent months, this research has marked several important milestones in the acquisition of important musical manuscripts created in captivity and deportation. In Prague, a thirty-year research cycle was coming to a close : the works written in captivity by the Czech composer Rudolf Karel (photo below) .

Czech composer Rudolf Karel (1880-1945)

At the outbreak of World War I, Karel was on holiday in Stavropol, making his repatriation impossible. He was suspected of being an Austrian spy and imprisoned by the Russian authorities, but escaped. Having taken refuge in Siberia, in 1919 he joined the Czechoslovak Legion stationed in the USSR.

Returning to Czechoslovakia in 1920, he taught composition at the Prague Conservatory, wrote Renesanční symfonie op.15, the lieder cycle V září helénského slunce, the cantata Vzkříšení, and the three-act opera Smrt kmotřička op.30. Following the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, he joined the resistance movement, supporting the Kvapil-Krofta-Làny group and providing support to the partisans.

On March 19, 1943, Karel was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned in Pankrác (Prague), subjected to interrogation and torture, and forbidden to write; having fallen ill with dysentery, he spent long periods in the penitentiary infirmary, where he wrote the Lieder op.41, Pankrác March op.42a for piano, Pankrác Polka op.42b for violin and piano, and Pankrác Waltz op.42c for piano.

Between January and February 1945, he wrote the piano score for Nonet, Op. 43 , and the five-act opera Tři zlaté vlasy děda Vševěda, 240 complete sheets of paper with piano reduction and vocal parts. He used pencils or charcoal to write, on toilet paper, tissue paper, or notebook paper, which the prison superintendent Müller would then transfer outside the prison to Karel's family (photos below).

Parts of Karel's Nonet op.43 written on sheets of toilet paper

Discovered , the superintendent was arrested by the Gestapo and tortured (he died in the same penitentiary). Karel was transferred on February 7, 1945, to the Kleine Festung in Theresienstadt ; his already critical health conditions worsened inexorably and he also contracted pneumonia. On the night of March 5, 1945, Karel was left feverishly outside his cells, which were meanwhile being cleaned and disinfected; he died of hypothermia along with nine other prisoners.

Manuscript of Karel's Nonet Op.43 on sheets of tissue paper

I've known Ivan, son of Rudolf Karel (photo below) , since 1991, when I began traveling to Prague four times a year. Our friendship with Ivan goes beyond research. Since then, I've watched Ivan grow older, but he's still the same friend, always ready to offer advice in his fluent English, a gentleman of times past, to provide me with materials, or to write to museums and archives, hoping that his recommendation would grant me access to documents. Ivan's father was 65 when he died; today Ivan is 96, and this merry-go-round of life is a significant aspect of this research.

Francesco Lotoro with Ivan Karel, son of Rudolf

Ivan handed over the sheets of tissue paper and toilet paper on which his father wrote some of Pankrác's works; these documents alone are worth the entire Citadel that will be built in Barletta. This is a dream becoming history, and today concentration camp music research has an Institute, a publishing plan (the 12-volume Thesaurus Musicae Concentrationariae will be published in the coming years), four international projects awarded to the ILMC Foundation for travel, research, scanning of materials, manuscript acquisition, and archiving; and finally, the Citadel of Concentration Camp Music, which will be built on the site of the former distillery and which, thanks to the Program Agreement signed by all institutional partners, is finally moving relentlessly toward completion.

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