The Power of Music in Bearing Witness: Holocaust Composer Stories
By Justino Gordón-LeChevalié
Music has the power to tell stories, even where words can sometimes fall short. Through Holocaust Composer Stories, a new educational series created by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in partnership with the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum, the music of composers silenced by the Holocaust brings their personal stories of resilience, emotional depth, and defiance against oppression to light. The first composer featured is Pavel Haas, a Jewish composer from Czechoslovakia whose String Quartet No. 3 reflects both the richness of his artistry and the looming shadows of persecution. This initiative intertwines music, history, and education, offering a new pathway into Holocaust education by expanding what is included in the traditional classroom through the power of music.
Music as a Window to History
Holocaust Composer Stories is an immersive exploration of how music serves as a vessel for memory and emotion. With a short documentary on Haas that includes a performance of his String Quartet No. 3 by SLSO musicians—Alison Harney (Principal Second Violin), Nathan Lowry (Second Violin), Elizabeth Chung (Cello), and Beth Guterman Chu (Principal Viola)—students are guided through the historical context of Haas’s life. Composed during a time when Haas could see persecution spreading as Hitler rose to power, the quartet reveals how composition becomes a form of storytelling. The documentary is further enriched by insights from Dr. Sarah Ruddy, musicologist and SLSO Education Programs Manager, and Helen Turner, Director of Education at the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum, who help frame Haas’s work within the broader historical narrative.
Accompanying lesson plans, designed for middle and high school students, encourage participants to engage with Haas’s music as both a historical artifact and a medium of artistic expression. Aligned with Missouri and Illinois learning standards in both music and social studies, the curriculum is designed not only for music classrooms but offers an integrated learning experience across disciplines.
This arts-integrated approach means that students are learning about music and history simultaneously, with each subject informing and enriching the other. Students not only research history; they hear it. The “Crafting Emotions” lesson, for example, introduces students to the concept of musical motives—repeated, recognizable melodies—and how Haas manipulates them to express anxiety, longing, and defiance. By experimenting with these musical elements themselves, students gain insight into how a composer embeds emotion into sound.
A First-Person Account
Students examine Haas’s experiences in relation to broader Holocaust history, recognizing that while the Holocaust was a collective tragedy, its victims were individuals with unique lives, aspirations, and voices.
By following a guided listening framework, students identify moments in Haas’s quartet where music reflects his inner turmoil. The viola’s repeating plea, the haunting echoes of a traditional Czech hymn—these are not just compositional choices but sonic expressions of life under oppression.
Through the program’s culminating project, students write diary entries from Haas’s perspective, synthesizing their knowledge into a deeply personal reflection on how historical events might have shaped his compositions.
Music as Resistance
One of the most powerful lessons of Holocaust Composer Stories is its exploration of music as a tool for resistance. Students examine Haas’s Study for String Orchestra, a piece composed during his imprisonment at Theresienstadt. This concentration camp was infamously used in Nazi propaganda to create a facade of humane treatment. In reality, it was a holding center for Jewish artists and intellectuals before their deportation to extermination camps.
Haas’s music, though written and performed under duress, stands as an act of defiance. Students engage with this theme by composing their own lyrics to Haas’s melodies, imagining what words of resistance and hope might accompany his notes. This exercise deepens their understanding of how artistic expression persists even in the darkest circumstances, providing a means of resilience and rebellion.
Why Programs Like This Matter
Through the lens of one composer’s journey, Holocaust Composer Stories encourages students to see, hear, and feel an intimate, humanized account of history to which they otherwise may have no personal connection.
Music transforms abstractions into a lived experience—one that fosters empathy, critical thinking, and a deeper connection to the past.
“Many students already learn about the Holocaust through literature when they read the writings of Anne Frank, Elie Wiesel, and others,” Ruddy said. “Similarly, by listening to a composer’s music and hearing their story, students can connect on an emotional level with a person they don’t know who experienced the atrocities of the Holocaust.
Supported by Michael Staenberg and the Staenberg Family Foundation, Noémi Neidorff, the JCA Charitable Foundation, and the Rubin and Gloria Feldman Family Educational Institute, Holocaust Composer Stories is free and available to anyone, making it an accessible and invaluable resource for educators and others interested in learning about these composers.
Learn more about the Holocaust Composer Stories here.
Justino Gordón-LeChevalié is the SLSO’s Communications and Publications Coordinator.
