Rise Up & Resist

At the behest of the President of Poland Andrzej Duda, who will preside over the official commemoration of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in the nation’s capital on April 19, cultural institutions in Poland, Germany, the United States and Israel were invited to participate in an international commemoration of this anniversary with musical performances during the four weeks (April 19-May 16) of the 1943 uprising. This concert and others like it being held around the world honor the memory of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and its fighters and supporters.

• History of Warsaw Uprising

  Eighty years ago, on 19 April 1943, the Jews of Warsaw took up armed struggle against their Nazi oppressors. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the first major civilian rebellion in Nazi-occupied Europe and the largest extended act of armed resistance by Jews during World War II. The uprising capped a three-year ordeal that began in 1940, when the German conquerors of Poland began confining Jews within newly decreed ghettos in Warsaw, Lodz, Krakow and elsewhere. A majority of the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were transported to the Treblinka death camp in 1942. Leaders among those who remained led a month-long uprising that took the lives of most of the fighters and many of their enemies. Music had a special place in the struggle to maintain humanity while opposing Nazi barbarism. Not only did it refresh the spirit and provide emotional expression, but the ability of music to transcend languages and ethnicities helped sustain communal solidarity.

• Musical Selections

  The concert program will span solemn musical remembrance; outlawed music performed in the Warsaw ghetto in defiance of the Nazi regime; music performed by the Jewish Symphony Orchestra in the Ghetto; folk music celebrating Jewish, Polish-Jewish, and Polish cultural heritage; and popular cabaret songs and uplifting music of the time. Musical selections will include:

  • Mieczysław Weinberg’s Aria from Op. 9 for String Quartet, and his Sieben Jiddische Lieder (art songs with Yiddish text by Itzhok Lejb Perez, the Polish-Jewish writer/playwright known as one of the great classical Yiddish writers).
    
    
  • Karol Szymanowski’s “La Fontaine d’Arethuse” from Mythes, Op. 30 (performed on the last concert played by the Jewish Symphony Orchestra in the Warsaw Ghetto on April 12, 1942).
    
    
  • Frédéric Chopin’s Nocturne No. 20 in C-sharp minor (the piece Polish pianist and composer Władysław Szpilman played for the SS Officer who discovered him in hiding in Warsaw in 1944).
    
    
  • Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” sung in Yiddish, honoring the Jewish Symphony Orchestra’s plans, never able to be realized, to perform Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the fourth movement sung in Yiddish.
    
    
  • Popular songs such as “Makh tzu di Eygelekh” and “Piosenka a mojej Warszawie” composed for the ghetto theater and cabarets of the time by Dovid Beyglman, Henryk Wars and Albert Harris.
    
    
  • The religious song “Ani Ma’amin” with Hebrew text from the 13 Articles of Faith.
    
    
  • The Yiddish Hymn of the Partisans “Zog nit keynmol”—a song signaling courage, resistance, and resilience.
• About Taube Philanthropies

  For more than 30 years, Taube Philanthropies has been a leader in supporting educational, research, cultural, community and youth organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area, Poland, and Israel. Founded by businessman and philanthropist Tad Taube in 1981, and now led by Tad and his wife, Dianne Taube, the foundation's collaborative philanthropy has helped build programs and institutions that strengthen the community, every year serving hundreds of thousands of all ages and backgrounds, and working to ensure that citizens have the freedom and opportunity for advancement of their goals and dreams.