For more than 30 years, one man has recovered and revitalized music written during the Holocaust — pieces written by Jews, prisoners of war, Roma and other Nazi prisoners. Thursday, during Jewish American Heritage Month, that music will play for a sold-out crowd in Omaha. These melodies written during the Holocaust have been resurrected decades later by Italian-Jewish maestro Francesco Lotoro. “Those who wrote music in the camps chose beauty. This music will survive, and the message inside the music, it will survive,” Lotoro said.Lotoro travels the world salvaging music from humanity’s darkest days, bringing it to life in the name of all the composers and people who did not live to see liberation. “This music was a way to resist death. The musicians in the camps chose music to defend themselves and the human race from destruction,” Lotoro said.And for the first time, Omaha will hear this music played live by the city’s symphony. “Despite everything all around, we survived. This music survived. So it’s a sort of smile telling the story of this music that helped humans survive,” Lotoro said.The concert will be conducted by Lotoro, but orchestrated behind the scenes by Omaha philanthropist Susie Cohn. “Every note he plays is important, and I am so grateful to be able to have this happen in our city of Omaha,” Cohn said. And there’s something particularly poignant about this music coming to life at the Tri-Faith Center, where the mission is to bring peace to a world desperately in need of harmony.”In this place, a very positive energy is being created with the people working on this,” Lotoro said.Not just by the people making music, but the people taking it in. “I think that there’s so many people who haven’t even heard of the Holocaust — they need to know what happened to our ancestors,” Cohn said.And Omaha’s Jewish leaders believe the language of music that transcends religion, race and time, can be an entry point for Holocaust education. “I think if we can really put names, faces, music to that number of six million, then we can really understand a little bit more about ourselves,” Joanna Alexander, a cantor with Temple Israel, said. “We hear their story of death. We don’t hear their story of how they lived and what they put into the world.” A lesson that reverberates through Temple Israel and is maestro Lotoro’s life mission. “They wanted this music to be performed one day in theatres, concert halls, auditoriums, churches, synagogues,” Lotoro said. People are hearing that history one note, measure or aria at a time.Top headlinesFormer teaching assistant files racism, discrimination lawsuit against UNOBlair teens charged as adults for sexually assaulting friend, sharing recording online115 Nebraska businesses against bills targeting LGBTQ+ community sign letter to Gov. Pillen
OMAHA, Neb. —
For more than 30 years, one man has recovered and revitalized music written during the Holocaust — pieces written by Jews, prisoners of war, Roma and other Nazi prisoners.
Thursday, during Jewish American Heritage Month, that music will play for a sold-out crowd in Omaha.
These melodies written during the Holocaust have been resurrected decades later by Italian-Jewish maestro Francesco Lotoro.
“Those who wrote music in the camps chose beauty. This music will survive, and the message inside the music, it will survive,” Lotoro said.
Lotoro travels the world salvaging music from humanity’s darkest days, bringing it to life in the name of all the composers and people who did not live to see liberation.
“This music was a way to resist death. The musicians in the camps chose music to defend themselves and the human race from destruction,” Lotoro said.
And for the first time, Omaha will hear this music played live by the city’s symphony.
“Despite everything all around, we survived. This music survived. So it’s a sort of smile telling the story of this music that helped humans survive,” Lotoro said.
The concert will be conducted by Lotoro, but orchestrated behind the scenes by Omaha philanthropist Susie Cohn.
“Every note he plays is important, and I am so grateful to be able to have this happen in our city of Omaha,” Cohn said.
And there’s something particularly poignant about this music coming to life at the Tri-Faith Center, where the mission is to bring peace to a world desperately in need of harmony.
“In this place, a very positive energy is being created with the people working on this,” Lotoro said.
Not just by the people making music, but the people taking it in.
“I think that there’s so many people who haven’t even heard of the Holocaust — they need to know what happened to our ancestors,” Cohn said.
And Omaha’s Jewish leaders believe the language of music that transcends religion, race and time, can be an entry point for Holocaust education.
“I think if we can really put names, faces, music to that number of six million, then we can really understand a little bit more about ourselves,” Joanna Alexander, a cantor with Temple Israel, said. “We hear their story of death. We don’t hear their story of how they lived and what they put into the world.”
A lesson that reverberates through Temple Israel and is maestro Lotoro’s life mission.
“They wanted this music to be performed one day in theatres, concert halls, auditoriums, churches, synagogues,” Lotoro said.
People are hearing that history one note, measure or aria at a time.
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