Future Memories: Lotoro's journey in search of music written in concentration camps continues in Poland and Hungary

Francesco Lotoro a Cracovia, a casa di Christof Kulisiewicz

Francesco Lotoro's journey in search of music composed in concentration camps and other places of civilian and military captivity around the world between 1933 and 1953 this time included stops in Poland and Hungary. The project "Future Memories: Lotoro's Journey to Save the Lost Music," of which this journey is also part, is promoted by the Fondazione Istituto di Letteratura Musicale Concentrazionaria ETS and supported by the Claims Conference (New York), the Puglia Region, the Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe (London), the Righteous Persons Foundation (Los Angeles), and the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah (Paris) . The journey was undertaken together with Grazia Tiritiello , vice president of the ILMC Foundation.

In Krakow , they met Christof Kulisiewicz, son of Aleksander Kulisiewicz , a Polish singer and composer deported to Sachsenhausen. In addition to acquiring three folders of autographed material and 14 musical manuscripts, Christof donated other phonographic and book material and allowed the materials stored at his father's cottage, not far from Krakow, to be scanned. Christof Kulisiewicz also arranged for the most important manuscript in his collection, Le Crucifié, written by his father in Sachsenhausen, to be donated to the ILMC Foundation. He requested a month's time to produce some high-definition reproductions of the manuscript for his archive.

In the pictures: Francesco Lotoro and Grazia Tiritiello in Krakow

The next day Lotoro and Tiritiello traveled by bus to Oświęcim to go to the Auschwitz Museum where they scanned the Diary of Polish deportee Kazimierz Tyminski , a piano piece written by Adam Kopyciński and the score of Ich bin heute, ja so vediebt arranged for orchestra by Józef Kropiński.

In photos: in Oświęcim at the Auschwitz Museum

They then reached Budapest by Flixbus and at the Institute for Musicology acquired a copy of the Sonata for Solo Violin , written in captivity by Hungarian-Jewish composer Sándor Kuti. They then went to the Fővárosi Szabó Ervin Könyvtár, the Budapest Metropolitan Library, where they had scheduled an appointment; the staff had already set aside scores by deported Hungarian-Jewish composers, which they then scanned. They then went to the Library of the Liszt Ferenc Zenemuvészeti Fóiskola ; since there is no scanning service, they photographed many works by Hungarian-Jewish composer László Weiner.

In the photos: Lotoro in Budapest at the Liszt Academy and the Institute of Musicology, some scores, photographic portraits of the composers Sándor Kuti, László Weiner, György Justus [Jusztusz]

The next day they went to the Országos Széchényi Könyvtár (NSZL), where materials had been reserved; the scans were not ready but would be sent online shortly. At the NSZL, they found the rare Jazz Suite for piano by the Hungarian-Jewish composer György Justus , who had been killed in his home by pro-Nazi Hungarian militia in November 1944.