Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity | Music and Musicians Persecuted during the Holocaust

On November 15, 1936, three years after Adolf Hitler came to power, the New York Times reported that the statue of Felix Mendelssohn in Leipzig had been destroyed. This violent action clearly signaled that music by composers of the Jewish faith or tradition would no longer be performed in opera houses and concert halls. The great compositions of Salomon Sulzer, Jaques Offenbach, Erich Korngold, Gustav Mahler, Arnold Schönberg, Mendelssohn, and many others were also silenced throughout the Third Reich and Nazi-occupied Europe.

Prior to the destruction of the Mendelssohn statue, Jewish musicians were systematically expelled from concert halls and opera houses throughout German-controlled Europe. In early March 1933, Bruno Walter, one of Germany's most beloved and renowned conductors, had just returned to Berlin after a successful concert tour in the United States. Walter was informed of "certain difficulties" should he...