Lithuania’s Lietuvos Rytas newspaper has published on its website an article about music from the ghettos and camps called “Incredible Weapon Defended People Suffering the Flames of the Hell of Naziism” by Julius Palaima.

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Six million Jews were horribly murdered in the Holocaust, but the music they created in the concentration camps has survived to today and is now being recreated. It became an exotic refreshment from the murderous reality.

The inscription above the steel gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp says: “Work Sets You Free.” Obviously this was a disgusting lie to hide the blood-curdling truth. One measure, however, helped people escape if only briefly from the horrors of the concentration camp.

It was music. Inmates managed to create even under the most complicated and horrific living conditions. A composer from Italy, Francesco Lotoro, stands at the wheel of the ship conserving this impressive creative work. The man for more than three decades now has been trying to recreate, perform and complete the works of music written under unenviable circumstances. His work is really unique. Lotoro says all of this might never have reached listeners’ ears. “All of this might have disappeared and become lost, but a miracle happened…”

Full text in Lithuanian here.