New book entitled Price of Concord/Memoirs;Portraits of Artists; Interactions of Cultures by prof. Markas Petuchauskas („Versus aureus“ Publishers, 2015; www.versus.lt; info@versus.lt) is available to the readers.

Please find the extracts about prominent Litvak artists from the book.

THE TRAGIC FATE OF A SINGER

When we speak about the main creators of the Ghetto theatre, such as writers, playwrights, and artistic directors, the name of famous singer Liuba Lewicka unwittingly springs to mind. Without her presence, it would be impossible to imagine the artistic Vilnius which had belonged both to the pre-war epoch as well as to the Vilnius ghetto time.
When I started preparing an evening dedicated to the singer, the most difficult task was the making clear of her repertoire. The restoring of her portrait was not an easy exercise either. Without the unfolding of the above-mentioned aspects, I could not even start the conversation about the wonderful coloratura soprano of Vilnius of those days. What followed were long searches in archives, the pages of the old press, the playbills of the Ghetto theatre as well as the memories of its participants. All of the above served the reconstruction of the creative portrait of the singer.
During the creative evening, we were able to perform the songs intoned by Liuba. The songs included her Jewish repertoire, arias from operas as well as works by her favourite composers and poets. The viewers could even see the portrait of the singer, who had possessed such a wonderful voice. After long exertions, the portrait has been finally discovered.
Liuba Lewicka (1909–1943) was born and studied in Vilnius, where she graduated from the state-run conservatoire. Her debut in the concert was met with success. The newspaper Kurjer Wilenski noted her outstanding vocal features, as well as her exceptional coloratura soprano.
The singer continued her studies in Vienna, where she grew famous and won the first prize at an international competition for performers in Vienna.
Judging by the memories presented by Ona Šimaitė, Avrom Sutzkever and others as well as relying on the mentioned sources, a sufficiently clear picture of Lewicka’s life emerges.
On her return to Vilnius, Liuba became even more popular. She kept preparing many concerts. She sang arias from Verdi’s La Traviata, Puccini’s La Boheme, Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots as well as the songs composed by Schubert and Schumann. For example, Lewicka sang Schubert’s Hunter in the Mountains on Vilnius radio. The song How Very Quietly the Nemunas is Flowing by Lithuanian composer Emerikas Gailevičius and works by Donizetti, Lehar, Verdi were performed on the radio in the programme Soloist Lewicka is Singing. The programme was performed at 7.15 p.m. on the 22nd of February 1940.
Lewicka loved Heine’s poetry very much. She was very fond of singing the music, composed to Heine’s poetry. She delighted in Tczaikovsky, whose romances she sang with a great pleasure. A similar concert of the works by Tczaikovsky performed by the singer in the Vilnius Philharmonic Hall was remembered by Šimaitė with a great excitement. Lewicka also liked and frequently sang Jewish folk songs both in Yiddish and Hebrew.
A period important for the singer’s creative activity was the period of her cooperation with world- renowned Jewish actor and director Zygmunt Turkow. In 1938, Turkow renewed some of the old performances which used to be staged in Warsaw. In that year, the performances were staged from anew in the Warshewer Jidiszer Kunst Teatre (Warsaw Jewish Art Theatre) in Lvov. Turkow newly staged and originally interpreted two operas by famous musical classic Avrom Goldfaden. The operas were Bar Kohkba and Shulamis: oder bas yerusholayim (Shulamis or The Daughter of Jerusalem). The principal roles were sung by Lewicka, whose resourceful acting and the possibilities presented by her unique voice fascinated the audience and to a large extent determined the success of these performances. All of that took place not only in Lvov, but during the theatre’s tours in Krakow, Warsaw and other Polish cities.
On her return to Vilnius, Lewicka participated in a great number of concerts. She also taught at the State Conservatoire, where she headed the singing class.
It is interesting to note that during the concert, which took place in December 1940, Liuba Lewicka sang together with another famous Jewish singer, the cantor of Kaunas Synagogue of those days, Mikhail Aleksandrovich. Their joint performance seemed to have symbolized the return to Lithuania of Vilnius, which had been torn away from Lithuania, as well as the merger of the Litvak culture both of Vilnius and Kaunas.
I would still wish to emphasize that Aleksandrovich’s friend and admirer Kipras Petrauskas as well as all the elite of the State-run theatre used to come to the synagogue on Saturdays to listen to Aleksandrovich performing secular music and arias from operas. Such a brave and unheard of behavior by a cantor in the synagogue was met with attacks from the orthodox flank, but Aleksandrovich chose to ignore them as a matter of principle, at least that is what he asserted in his memoirs.
Two innovative Litvak cantors – Abraham Mosze Bernstein in Vilnius Synagogue and Mikhail Aleksandrovich in Kaunas Synagogue – were the first ones to initiate the performances of secular music in the houses of prayer.
Such performances highlighted the Jewish singing tradition also in Lewicka’s creative works especially in her performances of folk songs.
For the first time I heard Liuba Lewicka in the Vilnius Ghetto theatre. I remembered the looks of that small and slender woman resembling a very young girl. The hall fell silent, and people’s eyes were filled with tears.
Soon the entire Ghetto fell in love with Lewicka. Indeed, she became the nightingale of the Ghetto, the way Ona Šimaitė had called her tenderly. Not only on account of her wonderful voice and sensitive soul did Šimaitė call her that name. The reason lay deeper, as that little bird incapable of causing any harm to anybody was fated to endure the most ferocious trials. Šimaitė emphasized her strong character. She had never seen Liuba cry.
Once, when both friends were sitting together at a performance of the Ghetto theatre, Lewicka was walked out from the hall and driven to Gestapo. Liuba was accused of ‘rassenschaue’ as well as of her sympathies for the Bolsheviks. SS officer Murer interrogated her very sadistically. That time Liuba was defended and returned to the Ghetto. In spite of all the subsequent endless persecutions, that small and strong woman did not break down. She actively participated in various concerts and performances.
She was preparing very intensively her new performances, though it was extremely difficult to obtain the necessary notes in the Ghetto. Liuba was helped by Lithuanian and Polish musicians, who, in various ways, used to send the notes to the Ghetto. In that way they helped Liuba to expand her already sufficiently rich repertoire. In that respect, Lewicka was very much helped by her old friend, Polish singer Olena Olgina. It all reminds me of the solidarity which existed between the actors of the Vilnius Drama Theatre and the musicians of the Symphony Orchestra with the artists of the Vilnius Ghetto theatre.
The 18th of January 1942 was the date of the first concert, to which head of the literary department of the theatre Sutzkever had invited Liuba Lewicka to sing folk songs. As the writer remembered the situation later, the concert took place just following the night of the ‘yellow schein’, and “the mood in the hall resembled that of the service held for the commemoration of the dead.” Liuba performed the songs: Cwei taibelach (Two Doves), Di Nakht (The Night) as well as Zamd un Shtern (Sand and Stars). The people were mourning for the dead and crying.
One concert began to follow the other. Lewicka went back to her arias and operas which she had liked so very much before the war and which had brought the singer such a wide recognition. She performed an aria from Goldfaden’s opera Bar Kokhba as well as other arias from different Jewish operas. She also continued singing arias from the operas by Verdi, Puccini, Donizetti and Meyerbeer. Songs by Tchaikovsky, Schubert, Schuman as well as the works written to Heine’s texts sounded anew.
At the concerts and events which took place on the 27th of May 1942, on the 23rd of August as well as on the 29th and the 30th of August 1942, her voice was ringing everywhere. The participation in the presentations by singers Liuba Lewicka and Vera Libo, alongside conductor Durmashkin and famous violinists and pianists, lifted those performances to the artistic heights of pre-war Vilnius.
When conductor Avrom Sliep and pianist Tamara Girszowicz organized a musical school in the Ghetto, offering classes in grand piano, violin and singing, more than a hundred of talented children attended that school. Liuba started running the class in singing. She cooperated with such famous musicians of pre-war Vilnius and the Ghetto theatres as pianists Adela Bay, Roze Nadelman, Sonia Rechtdik, Mania Kowarska, the violinist Wolf Rabinowicz and singer Vera Libo.
Lewicka worked with all her might. Conductor of the theatre Durmashkin was secretly rehearsing the staging of an opera. The artists working in the field of scenography, Uma Olkenicki and Rochl Sutzkever were preparing the decorations. Liuba was rehearsing the leading role. However, none of the authors of those memoirs or remembrances mentions the title of the opera. American historian Solon Beinfeld is of the opinion that the theatre had been planning to stage the first night of Bar Kokhba, which had to be revoked because of the displeasure, expressed by the Germans. We could only try and guess whether Bar Kokhba had been planned to be staged as an opera, loved by Lewicka, or as a dramatic work.
According to the testimony of Sutzkever, Liuba was preparing her role most intensively. In the mornings, on her way to work, she used to hum her part. She impatiently was waiting for the first night.
One day, on her return from work Lewicka was stopped by the boss of the Ghetto Murer. He must still have remembered his previous meeting with the singer. On searching her he discovered a small sack of peas which Lewicka must have been carrying for her sick mother. Murer put her into a vehicle and drove her to the Lukiškės prison.
While in prison, Lewicka retained her strength and optimism. In her ward, she used to sing to those who had been sentenced to death. On the 23d of February 1942, though, the officer in charge of the executions in Paneriai, Martin Weiss, transported Liuba to Paneriai.
As Sutzkever recollected the situation later, in the car driven by Weiss himself, there sat and smoked his mistress, a thirty-year-old member of the Gestapo Helen Degner, who in earlier days had been a student of Hamburg University. Helen Degner ordered Liuba to undress naked. When the singer refused to obey that order, Helen Degner threatened to put her eyes out. Liuba was forced to descend into the ditch. Standing on the edge of the ditch and equipped with field glasses, Weiss and Murer were watching the execution. The ex-student of Hamburg took hold of a machine gun and, laughing, fired a series of shots.
In the autumn of 2005, at an evening organized by myself, the melodies loved by Liuba rippled away. More than six decades have passed since her singing in person. During the evening, though, the melodies were sung by the wonderful performer of Yiddish songs, Maria Krupoves, while Lithuanian singer Asta Krikščiūnaitė prepared arias from the operas by Puccini and Verdi as well as Schubert and Schumann’s songs, so greatly loved by Liuba Lewicka. Read by well-known Lithuanian actor Rimantas Bagdzevičius, the memories of Avrom Sutzkever and Ona Šimaitė and others about the wonderful person and the woman of a great talent as well as about her tragic fate reverberated very impressively.
The works loved by Liuba, the memories of her friends and, towards the end of the evening, a very popular song Wilne, a peculiar anthem of Vilnius, performed in Yiddish by the two soloists, seemed to have brought back to us the picture of a brave and charming woman who was also a great singer of the Jerusalem of Lithuania.