A 90-year-old Holocaust survivor will make his orchestral debut with renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma on Tuesday to benefit a foundation dedicated to preserving the work of artists and musicians killed by the Nazis。
Ma and George Horner, a retired doctor who lives near Philadelphia, embraced warmly in a small room at Boston's Symphony Hall on Tuesday afternoon before a brief rehearsal。
Ma thanked Horner for helping the Terezin Music Foundation, named for the town of Terezin, site of an unusual Jewish ghetto in what was then German-occupied Czechoslovakia. Even amid death and hard labor, Nazi soldiers there allowed prisoners to stage performances。
On Tuesday night, they will play music composed 70 years ago when Horner was incarcerated。
"It's an extraordinary link to the past," said concert organizer Mark Ludwig, who leads the foundation。
Horner played piano and accordion in the Terezin cabarets, including tunes written by fellow inmate Karel Svenk. On Tuesday, Horner will play two of Svenk's works solo - a march and a lullaby - and then team up with Ma for a third piece called "How Come the Black Man Sits in the Back of the Bus?"
Svenk did not survive the genocide. But his musical legacy has, due in part to a chance meeting of Ludwig, a scholar of Terezin composers, and Horner, who never forgot the songs that were written and played in captivity。
Still, Ludwig found it hard to ask Horner to perform pieces laden with such difficult memories。
"To ask somebody who ... played this in the camps, that's asking a lot," said Ludwig。
Yet Horner readily agreed to what he described as a "noble" mission. It didn't hurt that he would be sharing the stage with Ma - even if he thought Ludwig was joking at first。
"I told him, 'Do you want me to swallow that one?'" Horner recalled with a laugh. "I couldn't believe it because it's a fantastic thing for me."
Ma said before the performance that he hoped it will inspire people to a better future。
"I grew up with the words, 'never again,'" said Ma, who was born 10 years after the end of World War II revealed the scope of the Holocaust. "It is kind of inconceivable that there are people who say the Holocaust didn't exist. George Horner is a living contradiction of what those people are saying."
He said Horner was able to survive "because he had music, because he had friends, because the power of music could fill in the empty spaces."
"To me George Horner is a huge hero, and is a huge inspiration," Ma said. "He is a witness to a window, and to a slice of history, that we never want to see again, and yet we keep seeing versions of that all over the world. I hope we are inspired by that and we keep that memory forever."
The program features additional performances by Ma and the Hawthorne String Quartet. In a statement, Ma said he's glad the foundation is "giving voice through music to those whose voices have been tragically silenced."
Horner was 21 when he was freed by Allied soldiers in 1945 after serving time at Terezin, Auschwitz and Buchenwald. His parents and sister perished in the camps。
And though his back still bears the scars of a Nazi beating, he remains spry and seems much younger than his 90 years。
When Horner found out about the duet with Ma, Ludwig said, "He was so excited, to me he sounded like a teenager." 查看譯文
據(jù)美國(guó)媒體10月22日?qǐng)?bào)道，一名90歲的納粹大屠殺幸存者當(dāng)天在波士頓交響樂(lè)大廳和華裔大提琴家馬友友同臺(tái)演出，給特雷津音樂(lè)基金會(huì)(Terezin Music Foundation)籌集資金，該音樂(lè)會(huì)一直致力于保護(hù)在大屠殺中遇難的藝術(shù)家和音樂(lè)家的作品。
喬治 赫納在第二次世界大戰(zhàn)期間被納粹囚禁，他的父母和姐妹都不幸在集中營(yíng)里去世。他曾被囚于特雷津集中營(yíng)、奧斯維辛集中營(yíng)和布痕瓦爾德集中營(yíng)，飽受凌虐，當(dāng)年納粹毆打所致的背部傷痛時(shí)至今日仍然折磨著他。1945年，21歲的他被盟軍救出，后來(lái)他成了一名醫(yī)生，現(xiàn)居費(fèi)城。
赫納在22日晚單獨(dú)演奏了70年前的獄友卡雷爾 什文克所譜的兩首曲子，并和馬友友合作演奏了一曲《為什么黑人要坐在公交車后面?》(How Come the Black Man Sits in the Back of the Bus?)。遺憾的是，才華橫溢的什文克沒(méi)有逃脫被納粹屠殺的厄運(yùn)。
演奏會(huì)組織者、特雷津基金會(huì)負(fù)責(zé)人馬克 路德維希說(shuō)：“這場(chǎng)音樂(lè)會(huì)跟過(guò)去有著非同尋常的聯(lián)系……邀請(qǐng)一個(gè)在集中營(yíng)里演奏過(guò)這些曲目的老人重拾昔日回憶，確實(shí)是強(qiáng)人所難。”
然而，赫納欣然同意了，他稱之為“高貴”的使命。對(duì)于和馬友友同臺(tái)演出，赫納開始以為是個(gè)玩笑。“我不敢相信，那對(duì)我來(lái)說(shuō)簡(jiǎn)直是異想天開。”路德維�；貞浐占{當(dāng)時(shí)的反應(yīng)，“他特別興奮，就像一個(gè)十幾歲的孩子。”
二戰(zhàn)結(jié)束十年后出生的馬友友說(shuō)：“我是聽(tīng)著‘(大屠殺)再也不會(huì)發(fā)生’這樣的話長(zhǎng)大的，不可思議的是，有人竟然說(shuō)大屠殺沒(méi)有發(fā)生過(guò)，喬治 赫納的存在足以戳穿這些謊言。赫納能活下來(lái)，是因?yàn)樗幸魳?lè)、有朋友……赫納是一個(gè)大英雄、大靈感，他見(jiàn)證了這段歷史。”馬友友希望這場(chǎng)演出可以激勵(lì)人們?nèi)ラ_創(chuàng)一個(gè)更好的未來(lái)。
