Roving with the Arts: ”Hope not Hate part 12”

Gideon Klein(Top) was born in Prerov, Moravia, on 6 December 1919.  His family, rooted in Jewish tradition, was also modern in outlook and supportive of culture and art.  

On 1 December 1941, Gideon Klein, along with thousands of other Prague Jews, was deported to Terezín. He immediately became active in the camp’s cultural life, undertaking whatever was necessary to assist in the creation and maintenance of musical activities for the benefit of both musicians and their audiences.

Nine days after completing his string trio, fated to be his last composition, Gideon Klein was sent to Auschwitz on 1 October 1944, and from there to Fürstengrube, a coal-mining labor camp for men, near Katowitz in Poland. It is not known whether he was killed there by the remaining Nazis as the liberating Red Army approached or whether he died on a forced march with those Jews made to accompany the fleeing SS.

 

Emile Goue(bottom)  1904-1946- was born in France. He was a scientist as well as musician and taught in Paris, He was conscripted into the army in France and captured in June 1940, taken to Flag XB in Nienburg, and took an active role in cultural and musical activities. 

“Captivity removes almost all contact with real life, therefore almost all interior life…frequent solitude is necessary to enrich one’s interior life, and all solitude does default…The hardest part is not being hungry, it is to feel one’s spiritual level lowering”.

After liberation, he died in 1946 in Paris.