Here, Kathleen Mcgrory shares some of her experiences working on the book with Joza Karas in his final months. The book was completed on November 26, 2008. He died two days later. Kathleen and his wife Anne have been friends since their school days.
by Kathleen Mcgrory
The 1985 edition of "Music in Terezin, 1941-1945," which was published in hard cover and paperback by the Pendragon Press, a music industry publisher in New York State, contained the general outline of the story, which few people outside Czechoslovakia and Israel knew. In 1970 the author discovered, in three short articles in a Czech music magazine, that eight brief compositions and fragments of music which had originated in the concentration camp called Terezin (German name, Theresienstadt) had been deposited in the Jewish State Museum in Prague. From that first mention, Joza Karas devoted the rest of his life (1970-2008) to an academic project on which he would work during each succeeding summer of his life, when he wasn't teaching or performing. The mystery that originally attracted his attention concerned possible reasons why, in all the close scrutiny of the Holocaust and its history over the previous 25 years, no one had yet become interested in what he called "this inspiring facet of Jewish life during the tragic years of World War II"-- the life and work of Jewish musicians, composers, conductors and children, who were forced to live and create music in Terezin, and who were sent from Terezin to their deaths in Auschwitz.
After the first edition appeared in 1985, the few remaining survivors and the families of Jewish musicians interned at Terezin began to get in touch with the author. He had interviewed many of them during his first research trips to Europe and he and his wife Anne traveled often to Europe from the first edition in 1985 until two years before Joza's death in November 2008. The Terezin survivors were advanced in age but so happy to find their experiences in a book. They gave Joza many diaries, photographs, art work done in the camp, letters and pieces of music, which he edited so that they could be performed in concerts. Joza and his wife, an old school friend of mine from the Bronx, used to have a party at their Bloomfield home every year in the week between Christmas and New Year, not a Christmas or Hanukkah party, but a party just for these Jewish friends. I attended the parties each year and got to know some of these wonderful people. Joza's English translations and transcriptions of the original music were the only versions that existed of many of the concert pieces composed by inmates of the camp and included a children's opera, "Brundibar." At least one Jewish prisoner gave a friend in the camp his only copies of the music he had composed, for safekeeping, just before he was sent to the gas chambers at Auschwitz. The friend survived the camp, but didn't know what to do with the music, so he just kept it safe, until he saw Joza's first book.
This second edition of "Music at Terezin, 1941-1945" contains all that new material, plus corrections and additions either noticed by the author or requested by the victims and their families--new information about their loved ones, their music and performances, and lots of historic photographs and hand-lettered posters. Before his death, Joza and Anne arranged to have all of the materials he used for the book transported to Memorial Terezin in Prague, Czechoslovakia, the new museum erected on the site of the camp. What I found most touching about all of this, in addition to the rare opportunity to be part of such a project, was that in doing the Index manually (still no software exists for doing an Index of Proper Names, unless you already have a list of the names and can use one of the existing search functions), I discovered that many of the names on the hand-lettered posters and program cards reproduced in the book are not mentioned in official records of the performances. So these simple placards and program notes are the only evidence that those few musicians and performers actually took part in performances at the Terezin camp. The Nazis kept meticulous records, but unless the person was a main performer or composer, that name didn't get into the official printed programs and records. They are all memorialized in Joza's book.
Yes, it was a wonderful experience. Because he was unable to work on the book himself from about Sept., when he asked my help as he was placed in Hospice care at home, to his death on Nov. 28, 2008, Joza asked the publisher to put my name on the cover and title page. I refused. It was Joza's book from beginning to end, and his research of a lifetime. He had already mentioned me as his editor in his first edition acknowledgments. That was enough. Editors get to escape the spotlight, and that's a good thing. See you in March! (For information about the book, see the Pendragon Press website, www.pendragonpress.com)
Kathleen