Future Memories: Lotoro's journey in search of music written in concentration camps has landed in the Netherlands and Belgium

Fondazione ILMC
Nov 18, 2022
2 min read

Francesco Lotoro's latest journey in search of music written in concentration camps has stopped in the Netherlands and Belgium . 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) . The journey was undertaken together with Donatella Altieri, head of management of the Foundation.

The research began at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam , where rare phonographic material is stored. After patiently listening to 33 rpm vinyl records and audio cassettes, an official request was made for the selected material, to be delivered later. The two researchers then went to the Jazzarchief in Amsterdam to recover pre-war recordings of Dutch Jewish jazz musicians who died in the camps. The staff was very helpful and donated a 33 rpm vinyl record of Songs by the Dutch duo Johnny & Jones (whose members died in Bergen-Belsen). In Amsterdam, antiquarian books were thoroughly searched, enabling the recovery of books on concentration camp music in the Gulag. Numerous discarded books were acquired from the NIOD Institute for Oorlogs-, Holocaust- and Genocide Studies ' library.

At the Amsterdam Jazzarchief, in the antiquarian bookshops of Amsterdam, at the Joods Historisch Museum in Almere

The search continued in Almere with Mirjam Krieg , daughter of Hans Krieg, who was deported to Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen. She handed over some of her father's works and advised them to go to the Nederlands Muziek Instituut in The Hague and the Joods Historisch Museum in Amsterdam for other works. Having to choose due to lack of time, they opted for the Joods Historisch Museum, which they would reach shortly thereafter.

From Almere, Lotoro and Altieri traveled by train to Utrecht to meet Baruch van Collem, son of the Jewish composer Hans van Collem, who wrote Psalm 100 and Wiegeliedje on sheets of toilet paper in the Westerbork penal colony. Baruch presented them with copies of his father's works.

Once back in Amsterdam, they finally went to the Joods Historisch Museum, realizing that Hans Krieg 's manuscripts and scores would have taken up an entire warehouse; it would therefore be impossible to proceed with a complete scan, so they limited themselves to photographing only the works Krieg wrote in captivity and persuaded the Museum to return and proceed with scanning all of Hans Krieg's material, a copy of which was planned to go to the ILMC Foundation and another copy to the same Museum.

They then moved to Brussels to acquire captive written material from Daan Sternefeld and Israel Olman that had already been requested from the Royal Conservatory Library ; the material had already been scanned or xeroxed, so they waited for the scanning or xeroxing of further material.