Future Memories: Lotoro's journey in search of music written in concentration camps has stopped in Italy, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.

Francesco Lotoro presso lo Joods Historisch Museum di Amsterdam

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 included stops in Italy, Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands. 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.

Documents on Jewish internment in Italy during World War II were acquired at the State Archives in Rome , while in Padua a meeting was held with Lucia Rampazzo, director of the Internment Museum, and researcher Patrizia Citeroni, in addition to the acquisition of several books. The journey continued by train to Mestre and then to Klagenfurt, Austria, where the following day a meeting took place with Božo Hartmann , son of the Austrian choirmaster Foltej Hartmann, deported to Dachau. Božo presented photographic material, a book collection, and the notebook of choral pieces performed by the Slavic choir of the deportees headed to Dachau by his father; the notebook was scanned and returned.

In the photos: composers Valentin Hartmann, Jozef Kroinski, Charles Abeles, Paul Seelig

The next stop, reached by bus, was Vienna , where the following day a meeting took place with Christiane Fennesz-Juhasz , director of the Mozes Heinschink Sammlung , the most important phonographic collection on Sinti and Roma music; it was deemed essential to combine this research with the Jewish one for reasons concerning connections of musical languages in Birkenau and other camps.

In the photos: Francesco Lotoro and Grazia Tiritiello in Vienna

Lotoro and Tiritiello reached Nuremberg (Germany) by train to meet Waldemar , son of the Polish composer Józef Kropiński , who was deported to Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Waldemar delivered an anastatic copy of the music written by his father in prison and agreed to quickly send to the Foundation one of the two musical manuscripts by Jozef Kropinski still preserved by him.

Francesco Lotoro a Norimberga con Waldemar Kropinski

From Nuremberg She traveled by train from Freiburg/Breisgau to meet Peter Koppitz, nephew of the Austrian Jewish composer Charles Abeles, who was interned in Alberobello, Puglia. Koppitz donated the manuscript of the Valzer Felicità , written in 1941 by his uncle in Alberobello, and an anastatic copy of a choral piece written by his uncle at the Ferramonti camp, where he was later transferred.

In the photos: Francesco Lotoro in Freiburg and with Peter Koppitz

Another stop was Amsterdam (Netherlands) , where over the course of four days the Hans Krieg collection (986 works written before, during, and after his deportation to Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen) was scanned at the Joods Historisch Museum . A further collection of discarded books was also made at the NIOD Instituut voor Oorlogs-, Holocaust- en Genocidestudies library. The last stop was the Nederlands Muziek Instituut in The Hague, where the Piano Concerto by the Dutch Jew Paul Seelig , who died in a Japanese camp in Jakarta, was scanned. Other music by Krieg is located at the Institute, and those responsible have undertaken to send copies. to the Foundation.

In the photos: in Amsterdam, at the Joods Historisch Museum, at the Nederlands Muziek Instituut in The Hague