Alma Rosé – from concert hall to Auschwitz
2 April to 31 October 2004
www.jmw.at

The annexation of Austria in 1938 brought Alma’s highly promising career to an abrupt end. The Rosés fled to London, but Alma was subsequently caught in the German invasion during a concert tour in the Netherlands. She was obliged to go underground and managed to make ends meet by giving performances at private soirées. While attempting to escape to Switzerland, she fell into the hands of the Nazi occupiers and was deported to Auschwitz. Alma finished her career in the women’s camp in Birkenau. She formed an amateur orchestra, which was required to perform for the inmates every morning and evening as they passed the camp gates. Many members of the orchestra were saved in this way from an instant death. Alma Rosé herself died of poisoning on 5 April 1944. On the last day of her life, she was observed by Josef Mengele, Auschwitz’s “angel of death”. To mark the 60th anniversary of Alma Rosé’s death, the Jewish Museum is staging a small commemorative exhibition describing the tragic and yet typical fate of this Jewish artist: at her cradle the genius Gustav Mahler, at her deathbed the SS doctor Mengele. more culture>>>