Estrategia Competitiva

The spirit of hope and deWance invoked by the partisans in their songs obviously served to promote distinct political goals. The songs were sung in informal groups or at meetings, and were intended to rouse the Wghters to action and strengthen their sense of solidarity. It is important to remember, however, that these songs did not represent the experiences of the vast majority of the ghetto population. In addition, they constituted only a small proportion of the songs in general circulation, and even then only in the Wnal months before the ghetto’s destruction.

The most important site of musical activity was the ghetto theatre. Apart from full-scale dramatic presentations, performances by the Yiddish and Hebrew choirs, and orchestral concerts, the theatre hosted several successful variety shows consisting primarily of songs and theatrical items. The opening performance on 18 January 1942 was celebrated with one of these pro- grammes, including fragments from Ya’akov Gordin’s Mirele Efros and

I. L. Peretz’s Di goldene keyt (The golden chain), a choral declamation of Khayim Nakhman Bialik’s ‘Glust zikh mir vaynen’ (I want to cry), perform- ances of folksongs ‘Eyli, eyli, lama azavtoni?’ (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?) and ‘Zamd un shtern’ (Sand and stars) by the cantor Eydelson and Lyube Levitski, and a performance of Chopin’s B minor Nocturne by Sonia Rekhtik.39

The Wrst few concerts at the theatre were similar to the Wrst, consisting of various unrelated musical and theatrical pieces. Each programme was per- formed only once. The idea enjoyed such success, however, that beginning in summer 1942 a series of regular revues was staged. These were perhaps the most important musical events in the ghetto. Under the artistic supervision of the theatre director Israel Segal, four revue programmes were put on between mid-1942 and September 1943, each with numerous performances. Although probably no more uniWed in conception than the initial programmes, these revues consisted primarily of newly composed Yiddish songs, and tackled a variety of subjects related to ghetto life.

The most important people involved in the creation of the revues were Kasriel Broydo, Mishe Veksler, and Leyb Rozental. In his early thirties at the outbreak of war, Broydo was a well-known writer, actor, and director in Jewish Vilna. He became responsible for putting together most of the revues staged in the ghetto. Nine years his junior, Leyb Rozental was after Broydo the most proliWc writer of revue texts; many of his songs were written for and performed by his sister Khayele. The composer Mishe Veksler provided music to many of Broydo and Rozental’s texts, and also conducted the theatre’s resident orchestra. The Wrst revue, called Korene yorn un vey tsu di teg (Days of corn and days of woe),40_{had its Wrst performance in June or July}

1942. The second,Men ken gornisht visn (You can never know), was staged in October of that year. Some time elapsed before the third revue, Peshe fun Reshe (Peshe from Rzesza), was Wrst performed in June 1943, and Moyshe halt zikh (Moyshe, hold on), the fourth and Wnal revue, began its run shortly before the liquidation of the ghetto in September 1943.

The theatre’s opening concert, which was also the Wrst performance of any kind in the ghetto, was organized under the sponsorship of the Ghetto Police and its head, Jacob Gens. From the time that the idea for the theatre was suggested by Viskind early in January 1942, it met with considerable oppos- ition. Writing in his diary the day before the concert, Kruk registered his

39 _{Sutzkever,Fun Vilner geto, 105.}

40 _{The title was a poignant play on the phrase ‘Korene yorn un vaytsene teg’ (Days of corn and}

disgust at the decision to go ahead with it: while he accepted the fact that other ghettos organized cultural activities, the recent experiences that had befallen the Vilna community—the Aktionen had ended barely a month earlier—made them entirely inappropriate. What infuriated him further was the elite complexion of the audience: along with members of the ghetto police and the Judenrat, who were to make up the bulk of the guests, several Nazi oYcers were to be invited (he even noted with sarcasm that the singer Lyube Levitski had prepared some German songs in case they were demanded). That these people should be celebrating while the remainder of the ghetto was in mourning struck him as immoral and oVensive. Angrily, he wrote: ‘Oyf a besalmen makht men nisht teater’ (One does not stage theatre in a cemetery). The socialistBund, of which Kruk was a prominent member, decided along with several other political groups to boycott the concert, and pamphlets were distributed throughout the ghetto inscribed with this slogan. However, these were removed soon after by a specially deployed police contingent.41

The concert was opened by Deputy Police Chief Joseph Glazman with a semi-apology: a memorial tribute to the approximately 34,000 victims that had been killed in the previous months. Observers sent to see whether the mourning of the ghetto was violated reported that the concert was sensitively organized, and in no way insulting to the community’s feelings. Dr Lazar Epstein, who had previously expressed in his diary the fear that the evening would be a scandal, remarked instead that ‘people laughed and cried. They cast oV the depression that had been weighing on their spirits.’42

Kruk seems also to have been placated somewhat by the fact that the concert’s takings were donated to one of the ghetto welfare organizations. He noted that a sign had been hung at the entrance to the hall reading: ‘Zol ayn hungeriker in geto nisht zayn’ (There should not be even one hungry person in the ghetto). He reported the concert a success, and although he com- plained on several further occasions about the oVensiveness of the theatre programmes, he gradually came to accept them, if somewhat begrudgingly. Those who had initially opposed the theatre also evidently saw no value in raising further protest, for although the second concert on 25 January was attended by German and Lithuanian dignitaries, among them well-known murderers of Vilna Jewry, no public objection was raised.43

41 _{Herman Kruk,Togbukh fun Vilner geto (New York, 1961), 136.} 42 _{Cited in Beinfeld, ‘Cultural Life’, pp. xxiii–iv.}

The concerts in fact soon found widespread acceptance among the ghetto population, and the theatre became an important social meeting place. On 8 March 1942, even Kruk conceded:

But life vanquishes all. Again life is pulsating in the Vilna Ghetto. From under the cover of Ponary there emerges a life striving for a better tomorrow. The previously boycotted concerts are gaining acceptance. The halls are crowded. The soirees of the literary association are attended by capacity audiences.44

The Wrst concerts took place in the hall of the former Yiddish secondary school on 6 Rudnicka Street, where the Judenrat had its oYces. Owing to the increasing demand, however, this venue was soon felt to be inadequate, and the former small municipal hall on Konska Street was renovated for the purpose of creating an oYcial ghetto theatre. The opening of the second theatre took place on 26 April 1942 under the sponsorship of the Judenrat’s Cultural Department. Once again, the audience was largely made up of Judenrat members and police oYcers.45

Performances in the theatre were controlled by the Judenrat and its Police Department from the outset. The consequence of this in the Wrst few months, as we have seen, was that it was for the most part the ghetto elite that was able to enjoy them. On several occasions between January and April 1942, Kruk reported concerts, revues, and theatre pieces staged for the beneWt of the police, and sometimes for the German authorities.46

However, the theatre soon proved useful to the Judenrat in ways pertaining to the general population as well. From the end of December 1941, when the ghetto had begun to settle into a period of relative stability, the Council had adopted a policy of ‘work for life’, maintaining that the inmates’ continued productivity would prolong the ghetto’s existence, and subsequently enhance their prospects for survival.47_{At a public address on 15 July 1942, Gens—who}

44 _{Kruk, ‘Diary’, 24.}

45 _{Ibid. 33–4; Trunk,Judenrat, 226; Gutman (ed.), Encyclopedia, 1572.} 46 _{Kruk,Togbukh, 221, 239, 246.}

47 _{Some sources suggest that the need for Jewish labour at this point was a genuine one. In a}

document dated 1 Dec. 1941, the Commander of Einsatzkommando 3 Karl Ja¨ger conWrmed that all Lithuanian Jews had been eliminated ‘apart from working Jews and their families’. He also noted: ‘I wanted to eliminate the working Jews and their families as well, but the Civil Administration (Reichskommissar) and the Wehrmacht attacked me most sharply and issued a prohibition against having these Jews and their families shot.’ Arad, Gutman, and Margaliot, Documents on the Holocaust, 398. The continuing conXict between the need for labour and the racist political goals of the regime make this a more complicated story, however. For a discussion of the factors that led ghetto leaders to employ the ‘work-for-life’ strategy, and the many struggles—between local and national authorities, on ideological and economic grounds—that marked the development of Nazi policy on this matter, see Christopher R. Browning,Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers (Cambridge, 2000), 58–88. According to Browning, ‘Jewish leaders were not deluded in believing

had now been appointed to the head of the Judenrat in addition to his position as Chief of Police—declared: ‘The basis of existence in the ghetto iswork, discipline and order. Every resident of the ghetto who is capable of work is a pillar on which our existence rests’ (emphasis in original).48 _The

importance of the policy and its underlying reasoning were revealed in a June 1943 article published in Gens’s mouthpiece,Geto Yedies (Ghetto News):49

The most remarkable new development in the life of the ghetto is the growth of the ghetto industry. Our industry was still on a very small scale last year and today it has become the main source of employment in the ghetto. About 3,000 persons now work in ghetto industries and eVorts are being made to increase this number to 4,000 and even 5,000. Both in the ghetto industries and in the work in small units we have been obliged to prove that, contrary to the accepted view that we will not succeed in any craft, we have in fact proved very eYcient and they cannot Wnd a replacement for us. Under the present war conditions the work in general and the work for the Wehrmacht in particular are absolutely the need of the hour. It is a fact, the Head of the Ghetto said, among other things, that the clouds of recent days have begun to be scattered, and economic factors alone inXuence this issue. Because of this we are obliged, and in the future as well, not to drop away from the working plan.50

During his tenure, Gens sought constantly to increase the numbers of those in employment, and by April 1943 more than 10,000 Jewish labourers were counted. Most worked in factories outside the ghetto, primarily in the heavy timber and metal industries. Within the ghetto, about 3,000 worked in workshops and light industry. Gens’s commitment to this policy made him a controversial Wgure, not least with regard to his willingness to hand over ‘undesirables’ such as criminals, the old, and the ill in order to save those capable of working.51

Gens also soon realized that the theatre could play an important role in furthering the ‘work for life’ agenda, much as it was doing for Chaim

that many local German authorities had a strong interest in the productive exploitation of Jewish labor’; they were mistaken, however, in the desperate hope that the vested interests of these local authorities could ultimately save a remnant of the community.

48 _{Arad, Gutman, and Margaliot,Documents on the Holocaust, 438.}

49 _{Geto Yedies was the Judenrat newspaper, a Yiddish-language bulletin that appeared weekly on}

Sundays, beginning in Sept. 1942, until the Wnal phase of the ghetto’s existence. It was distributed among ghetto institutions and posted on public billboards. Reports were included about ghetto events, places of employment, cultural life, health, education, and social welfare; notices from the ghetto administration were also included. Shmerke Kaczerginski,Khurbn Vilne (New York, 1947), 331–2; Arad,Ghetto in Flames, 331.

50 _{Arad, Gutman, and Margaliot,Documents on the Holocaust, 455–6.}

51 _{Gutman (ed.),Encyclopedia, 555–6; Yahil, The Holocaust, 445; Arad, Ghetto in Flames, 159–60;}

Rumkowski in Ło´dz´.52 _{On several occasions, he took the opportunity to}

present speeches after concerts. He also occasionally incorporated his propa- ganda about the value of work into the performances themselves. An article printed in Geto Yedies on 11 October 1942 about the revue Men ken gornisht visn indicated that at least one number was explicitly intended to emphasize the importance of productivity.53_{In October 1942, a series of Sunday concerts}

was instituted for workers who could not attend performances during the week. This was on the initiative of David Kaplan-Kaplanski, a well-known businessman in the ghetto and a close aYliate of Gens. The programmes, held at the theatre, usually consisted of an introductory address by Kaplan- Kaplanski, a lecture on a cultural theme, and recitations or singing in Hebrew and Yiddish.54

In a public address on 15 January 1943 commemorating the Wrst anniversary of the theatre, Gens justiWed his continued support for the institution, and presented his conception of its role in the community:

Last year they said that the theatre was just a fad of mine. ‘Gens is amusing himself.’ A year has passed and what do we see? It was not just a fad of Gens. It was a vital necessity. . . For the Wrst time in the history of Vilna we were able to get a curriculum of studies that was all Jewish. A big Jewish Writers’ association, big children’s homes, a big Day Home, a wide Jewish life. Our care for children has reached a level never seen before in the Jewish life of Vilna. Our spiritual life reaches high, and we have already held a literary competition. A musical competition will be held in another few weeks. All this was achieved by artists who mounted the stage. How did the idea come up? Simply to give people the opportunity to escape from the reality of the ghetto for a few hours. This we achieved. These are dark and hard days. Our body is in the ghetto but our spirit has not been enslaved. Our body knows work and

52 _{The relationship of the Ło´dz´ Judenrat to music raises interesting issues in parallel to the case of}

Vilna, although its context is distinct. Ło´dz´ had a wide-ranging and active musical life, which included an orchestra, several choruses, the revue-theatre Avant-Garde, a children’s theatre, as well as many solo performers. Cultural activities initially developed on public initiative, but in early 1941, independent cultural institutions were abolished by the Judenrat chairman Rumkowski, and all cultural work subsequently came under his strict supervision. On 1 Mar. 1941 the oYcial House of Culture was inaugurated, and it was here that both symphony concerts and revues were presented. Rumkowski frequently used performances there as a platform for delivering political speeches. The extent of Rumkowski’s control over cultural life has serious implications when it comes to the interpretation of music’s functions. Programmes had to pass his rigid censorship: entire shows were rarely permitted to be performed, and unwelcome political criticism could result in a venue being closed down. In this sense, it is likely that oYcially sanctioned musical activities aided in the larger deceptive maintenance of order for which Rumkowski has been retrospectively condemned. They were not a place for challenging commentary on the internal political workings of the ghetto, let alone the victims’ attitudes towards their oppressors. Rather, they seem on the whole to have provided ‘politically correct’ entertainment, as well as a forum for Rumkowski’s own agendas.

53 _{Kruk,Togbukh, 559–60, 368–9.} 54 _{Dworzecki,Yerushalayim de-Lita, 244.}

discipline today because this maintains the body. The spirit knows of tasks that are harder. Before the Wrst concert they said that a concert must not be held in a graveyard. That is true, but the whole of life is now a graveyard. Heaven forbid that we should let our spirit collapse. We must be strong in spirit and in body.55

The theatre performances were certainly intended by Gens to comfort the population, and to allow them to escape temporarily from the ghetto reality. However, his motives were also more pragmatic than his speech suggested. Because they could calm ghetto audiences, performances were a way of ensuring greater manageability and enhanced productivity. They also helped to discourage the desire for active resistance, and to promote instead the value of emotional fortitude. There are numerous indications among contempor- ary writings that Gens’s support for and frequent initiation of cultural activities stemmed directly from this objective. In mid-November 1942, for example, rumours had been spreading in the ghetto causing widespread fear and alarm. Kruk reported that many people had begun to sleep, fully clothed, in themalines (hideouts). In order to combat this situation, Gens ordered the arrest of those believed to have spread the rumours. In addition, he ordered that theatre performances be staged in order to divert and reassure the population. With his usual caustic disdain for Gens and his policies, Kruk responded: ‘In sum, one is amused in these days of woe.’56

Gens was by no means as heavy-handed in his policies as was Rumkowski. In Ło´dz´, Rumkowski’s workshops were some of the most important sites of cultural activity, particularly after 1942 when the Wrst mass deportations to Chełmno took place. Revues that included lively sketches and songs about life in the workplace were performed. Flam collected at least two songs from the factories that seem to have served explicitly propagandistic aims, express- ing enthusiasm about the daily labour that people were expected to perform, and thanking the ‘President’ for supporting their activities.57 _{While Gens}

only presented speeches in the theatre on occasion, Rumkowski spoke at the conclusion of almost all concerts performed at the House of Culture; he also censored public events, and frequently banned songs that were too open in their descriptions of Nazi crimes or the despair of the Jewish victims.58

Although most of the Vilna theatre songs did not make any mention of the perpetrators of the crimes, they did confront some of the more diYcult social

55 _{Arad, Gutman, and Margaliot,Documents on the Holocaust, 449–50.}

56 _{Kruk, ‘Diary’, 45–6; Gwynne Schrire, In Sacred Memory: Recollections of the Holocaust by}

Survivors Living in Cape Town (Cape Town, 1995), 102.

57 _{Flam,Singing for Survival, 26, 162–6.} 58 _{Kaczerginski and Leivick, 93.}

and emotional aspects of life in the ghetto, without Gens’s objection. What principally concerned the head of the Judenrat was the deWant attitude, associated primarily with the FPO, that promoted active resistance as the only viable response to the situation. This attitude threatened to compromise