In a concentration camp designed by the Nazis to eradicate Jewish cultural life, among 120,000 of its inmates who would ultimately be murdered, a rising young musician named Rafael Schachter managed one of the miracles of the Holocaust
Assembling hundreds of sick and hungry singers, he led them in 16 performances learned by rote from a single smuggled score of one of the most
monumental and moving works of religious music-Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem Mass.
"These crazy Jews are singing their own requiem" Adolf Eichmann, a principal architect of the genocide, was heard to remark after attending one of
the performances at the unique and surreal camp of Terezin, in what was then German-occupied Czechoslovakia
But for Schachter and his fellow prisoners, this Mass for the dead became not an act of meek submission to their fate, but rather one of
defiance of their captors, as well as a therapy against the enveloping terror
For Schachter would tell the singers: "Whatever we do here is just a rehearsal for when we will play Verdi in a grand concert hall in Prague in
freedom."
What is significant about the line in bold?
Olt describes the details of the war, but it also shows how music could not save them
Olt describes the people involved, but it also details the goals of the music program
O It describes the feelings of the people, but it also explains why these did not matter.
Olt describes the tragedy and fear, but it also shows how music gave them hope