Memoirs by the Other Survivors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Women’s Orchestra and the Second Generation Legacy

Abstract

In the years after the appearance of Fania Fénelon’s Holocaust memoir Playing for Time, other members of the women’s orchestra at Auschwitz-Birkenau began to publish their own remembrances. These served the dual purpose of providing more accurate representations of themselves and of rebutting the distorted elements in Fénelon’s account. In this chapter Eischeid details some of these other memoirs, and gives an update on the women and their lives. Featured musicians include Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, Helena Dunicz Niwińska, Violette Jacquet Silberstein, Esther Bejarano, Rachela Zelmanowicz Olewski, Hilde Grünbaum Simche and Flora Schrijver Jacobs. The emotional legacy of Fania Fénelon’s memoir has also extended to the children of the other survivors and Eischeid additionally explores these longer term legacies.