A 90-year-old Holocaust survivor will make his orchestral debut with renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma on Tuesday to benefit a foundation dedicated to preserving the work of artists and musicians killed by the Nazis.
Ma and George Horner, a retired doctor who lives near Philadelphia, embraced warmly in a small room at Boston's Symphony Hall on Tuesday afternoon before a brief rehearsal.
Ma thanked Horner for helping the Terezin Music Foundation, named for the town of Terezin, site of an unusual Jewish ghetto in what was then German-occupied Czechoslovakia. Even amid death and hard labor, Nazi soldiers there allowed prisoners to stage performances.
On Tuesday night, they will play music composed 70 years ago when Horner was incarcerated.
"It's an extraordinary link to the past," said concert organizer Mark Ludwig, who leads the foundation.
Horner played piano and accordion in the Terezin cabarets, including tunes written by fellow inmate Karel Svenk. On Tuesday, Horner will play two of Svenk's works solo - a march and a lullaby - and then team up with Ma for a third piece called "How Come the Black Man Sits in the Back of the Bus?"
Svenk did not survive the genocide. But his musical legacy has, due in part to a chance meeting of Ludwig, a scholar of Terezin composers, and Horner, who never forgot the songs that were written and played in captivity.
Still, Ludwig found it hard to ask Horner to perform pieces laden with such difficult memories.
"To ask somebody who ... played this in the camps, that's asking a lot," said Ludwig.
Yet Horner readily agreed to what he described as a "noble" mission. It didn't hurt that he would be sharing the stage with Ma - even if he thought Ludwig was joking at first.
"I told him, 'Do you want me to swallow that one?'" Horner recalled with a laugh. "I couldn't believe it because it's a fantastic thing for me."
Ma said before the performance that he hoped it will inspire people to a better future.
"I grew up with the words, 'never again,'" said Ma, who was born 10 years after the end of World War II revealed the scope of the Holocaust. "It is kind of inconceivable that there are people who say the Holocaust didn't exist. George Horner is a living contradiction of what those people are saying."
He said Horner was able to survive "because he had music, because he had friends, because the power of music could fill in the empty spaces."
"To me George Horner is a huge hero, and is a huge inspiration," Ma said. "He is a witness to a window, and to a slice of history, that we never want to see again, and yet we keep seeing versions of that all over the world. I hope we are inspired by that and we keep that memory forever."
The program features additional performances by Ma and the Hawthorne String Quartet. In a statement, Ma said he's glad the foundation is "giving voice through music to those whose voices have been tragically silenced."
Horner was 21 when he was freed by Allied soldiers in 1945 after serving time at Terezin, Auschwitz and Buchenwald. His parents and sister perished in the camps.
And though his back still bears the scars of a Nazi beating, he remains spry and seems much younger than his 90 years.
When Horner found out about the duet with Ma, Ludwig said, "He was so excited, to me he sounded like a teenager."
据美国媒体10月22日报道，一名90岁的纳粹大屠杀幸存者当天在波士顿交响乐大厅和华裔大提琴家马友友同台演出，给特雷津音乐基金会（Terezin Music Foundation）筹集资金，该音乐会一直致力于保护在大屠杀中遇难的艺术家和音乐家的作品。
乔治•赫纳在第二次世界大战期间被纳粹囚 禁，他的父母和姐妹都不幸在集中营里去世。他曾被囚于特雷津集中营、奥斯维辛集中营和布痕瓦尔德集中营，饱受凌虐，当年纳粹殴打所致的背部伤痛时至今日仍 然折磨着他。1945年，21岁的他被盟军救出，后来他成了一名医生，现居费城。
赫纳在22日晚单独演奏了70年前的狱友 卡雷尔•什文克所谱的两首曲子，并和马友友合作演奏了一曲《为什么黑人要坐在公交车后面？》（How Come the Black Man Sits in the Back of the Bus?）。遗憾的是，才华横溢的什文克没有逃脱被纳粹屠杀的厄运。
演奏会组织者、特雷津基金会负责人马克•路德维希说：“这场音乐会跟过去有着非同寻常的联系……邀请一个在集中营里演奏过这些曲目的老人重拾昔日回忆，确实是强人所难。”
然而，赫纳欣然同意了，他称之为“高贵”的使命。对于和马友友同台演出，赫纳开始以为是个玩笑。“我不敢相信，那对我来说简直是异想天开。”路德维希回忆赫纳当时的反应，“他特别兴奋，就像一个十几岁的孩子。”
二战结束十年后出生的马友友说：“我是听 着‘（大屠杀）再也不会发生’这样的话长大的，不可思议的是，有人竟然说大屠杀没有发生过，乔治•赫纳的存在足以戳穿这些谎言。赫纳能活下来，是因为他有 音乐、有朋友……赫纳是一个大英雄、大灵感，他见证了这段历史。”马友友希望这场演出可以激励人们去开创一个更好的未来。