Future Memories: Lotoro's journey in search of music written in concentration camps has landed in Milan and the Czech Republic

Fondazione ILMC
Oct 20, 2022
2 min read

Francesco Lotoro con Paola Mandel, Milano

Francesco Lotoro 's latest journey in search of music written in World War II concentration camps took place between Italy and the Czech Republic. 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), and the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah (Paris). Maestro Lotoro was accompanied by Grazia Tiritiello , vice president of the ILMC ETS Foundation. The first stop on the journey was Milan , where, at La Scala Theater, during a seminar on musicians discriminated against during World War II, to which Lotoro was invited, it was possible to access musical and literary material on the Jewish musicians interned in Ferramonti di Tarsia. Milan also offered the opportunity to meet Paola Mandel , daughter of the world-famous writer and artist Gabriele Mandel, who presented us with a well-preserved copy of her father's Canto .

Un frammento del Canto di Gabriele Mandel — Un frammento del *Canto* di Gabriele Mandel

The journey then continued to Prague , where Lotoro and Tiritiello conducted research at the Židovské Muzeum . They requested a high-definition acquisition of some of the works written in Theresienstadt, and the museum's management arranged for the requested materials to be shipped to their homes. This was followed by a meeting with Ivan, son of the Czech composer Rudolf Karel, imprisoned in the Pankrác penitentiary and at the Kleine Festung in Theresienstadt. In two meetings 48 hours apart, it was possible to photograph the musical and epistolary material produced by Karel in Pankrác. This resulted in the acquisition of complete photographic reproductions of the works written on sheets of light blue tissue paper and notebook paper, notes that Karel secretly hid in his dirty laundry during the Pankrác period to communicate with his family. The photographed material is copious and of capital importance for the research, and finally it was decided to also photograph the symphonic material written by Karel before his arrest in March 1943. The research then continued at the National Library in Prague [Klementinum] where xerox copies of scores and other materials of musicians deported to Theresienstadt or to other concentration camps opened during the period of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia were obtained.

Lotoro with Ivan Karel, some scores by Rudolf Karel, Lotoro in Theresienstadt

The journey continued to České Budějovice , where, thanks to a correspondence with the Jihočeské Muzeum over the previous months, the music created in Theresienstadt by Czech Jew Rudolf Kende, a paraplegic musician who wrote music in the camp with the help of students and friends, was acquired. The Museum was very cooperative, and even after the two researchers returned to Italy, it sent scans of materials that had not been possible to scan during the meeting in České Budějovice.