SONG KNOWLEDGE

Judith Schneiderman

"My story must be told so that the world learns that new life can emerge from destruction and death." Judith Schneiderman

Judith Schneiderman was born into a Yiddish-speaking family in 1928 in what is now Rakhiv in the Karpatoukraine. She narrowly escaped the extermination machinery of the National Socialists and lost a large part of her family in the Holocaust. Nevertheless, Judith Schneiderman never lost faith in the good in people - and she wrote down her experiences in order to preserve them for future generations and to send a positive signal. Her touching, stirring and hope-giving memoirs were published in 2010 in her second home country, the USA, under the title "I sang to survive. A story of hope and human kindness".

Since 2013, this important testimony to a dark time has been available in a German translation, published by the Stiftung Denkmal in Berlin. This text inspired Judith Schneiderman's daughter Helene Schneiderman, internationally sought-after mezzo-soprano and chamber singer at the Staatsoper Stuttgart, to create the unique literary-musical concert evening »Ich sang um mein Leben«.

School project: „Der Mensch muss eine Heimat haben“

»Der Mensch muss eine Heimat haben« offers a special way of communicating and intensively engaging with historical content whose relevance and significance are highly topical. Music, literature and history directly promote interpersonal dialog and exchange with regard to expulsion and the fates of persecuted people.

At the heart of the project is the autobiographical book "I sang for my life" by Holocaust survivor Judith Schneiderman, which is both an oppressive testimony to a dark time and a beacon of hope for all those who have lost their homeland.

To accompany the project, various materials were created to support music, German and / or history lessons, which can be used according to individual needs. To ensure the greatest possible variety of uses, they are interdisciplinary, multimedia and regional. A concert recording can be provided on request.

Ich sang um mein Leben, 2021 (photo: IHWA)