St. Ottilien Orchestra

In May of 1945, after the defeat of the Nazi empire, there was a small concert on the lawn of the Bavaria’s St. Ottilien Monastery Hospital. This hospital use to treat injured soldiers during the war, but now serving liberated victims of the Holocaust. The concert began with the national anthems of each of the Allied powers and continued with various arrangements of Bizet and Greig. The performers were all Holocaust survivors dressed in their tattered striped uniforms and prisoner number sewn into a Star of David. Their costumes were identical to their prison uniforms except for one small, but inspirational change. Female performers wore makeup and hair all done. Both men and women also wore concert dress underneath their tattered uniform. The stage was makeshift, featured a barbed wire fence and a large Star of David. All of these alterations to the typical concert may seem small, but to the players and for much of Europe, this was a symbolic act.
Ottilien Orchestra, played mainly nationalistic songs and degenerate music. The “Coronation March” was always popular and a rather symbolic choice at that. The piece ended with the main characters of the opera engulfed in flames. The St. Ottilien Orchestra traveled around the area and in the American controlled Landsberb camp. When they officially moved to this camp, the addition members and the original members decided to change their name to the Ex-Concentration Camp Orchestra. All in all, the orchestra members were cultural ambassadors for the liberated Jews. The music provided an open space to deal with the stress and trauma of the wars experiences. Not only did it provide relief for the performers, but also did for the rest of the Holocaust survivors and the whole world