Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity | Music at Theresienstadt

During the Third Reich music played significant roles for Nazi oppressors and their victims. The history of both the Nazi Entartete Musik policy and musical activities in the concentration camps is a compelling mixture of terror, inspiration, irony, and surrealism. Ultimately, it was the inspiring determination of artists, particularly those incarcerated in Theresienstadt, which left an enduring musical and social legacy for future generations.

Entartete Musik

The Nazi regime used music, as well as other arts, as a political tool to unify and indoctrinate the German Volk (the public). Entartete Musik was the name given by the Nazis to a wide variety of composers and musical genres as part of their propaganda machine. Entartete (degenerate, a term connoting psychologically abnormal behavior) signified something aberrant about the art,...