The opera Brundibr, Terezin, 1944. Many of the children in the film were deported to Auschwitz

From the online exhibition on the Yad Vashem website, “Deportations of Jews during the Holocaust - Stories of the Last Deportees, June 1944-April 1945: The story of Kurt Gerron“ The closing scene of the children’s opera, “Brundibár“, conducted by Rudy Freudenfeld. Children wearing the Yellow Star can be seen in the audience. From the propaganda film, “Theresienstadt: A Documentary Film from the Jewish Settlement Area“, filmed during August and September 1944 in the Terezin ghetto. Parts of the film were found after the war. Many of the children in this film extract were deported to Auschwitz in September and October 1944. The children’s opera, “Brundibár“ was composed in 1938 by Hans Krása (murdered at Auschwitz) to a score by Adolf Hofmeister. The opera was performed dozens of times in the ghetto. In the shadow of the deportations to the East, the music teachers prepared several children for each role, so that there would always be children familiar with the parts. In June 1944, the children performed for the Red Cross delegation that visited the ghetto. Greta Klingsberg, who played the role of Aninka, recalls: “Participation in “Brundibár“ gave us a few moments of utterly normal life on the stage… The opera’s concluding words – ’If we stand together, love the truth and adhere to it, we will win’ – gave us hope.“ In her testimony, Ella Weissberger-Stein, who played the role of the cat, recalls that the music made them forget their hunger and hardships. Center stage is Hunze Triechlinger (the boy with the mustache) in the role of Brundibár. Hunze was murdered in the Holocaust. Other children who were identified and survived: Ella Weissberger-Stein (the cat); Zdeněk Ohrenstein (Ornest) (the dog); Gerta Klingsberg (Aninke) and Eva Erben.