The Inextinguishable Symphony: A True Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany

Rating:
Summary: The Inextinguishable Symphony
Review: From the first few pages of Martin Goldsmith's brilliant novel, I could not put it down. This book is a highly detailed, fascinating account of a little known piece of history. Although everyone is familiar with the attrocities of the holocaust, the author offers up a haunting account of the events from a cultural perspective, a truly personal account revolving around his own parents lives and how they were able to survive Nazi Germany. I had studied the holocaust in history classes in high school, but none came close to Goldsmith's painstakingly thorough account of the rise of national Socialism in Germany in the 1920's and 30's. Written simply and in a matter-of-fact style, the author pulls no punches and offers the reader a truly engaging study of the events leading up to WWII. But at the same time, the reader is also drawn in by the powerful bond between his mother and father and their love for the beautiful music which they had grown up with. I'm no musician, but was certainly fascinated to learn of all the wonderful Jewish contributions to our world culture. And although I certainly am quite removed from all events of the holocaust, I have never been so emotionally moved by a story before. This is a beautiful book and a must read for everyone.

Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: I listened to Martin Goldsmith on "Performance Today" (and still listen to his successor, Fred Child) for many years. This man who for years described classical music on the radio -- composers and their life story, pieces and their histories, in accessible, engaging, and lightly humorous ways, and even sometimes tied it in to his love of baseball -- he also has an extraordinary family story. It's moving and well-written, and makes me think about the extraordinary stories that must dwell in the depths of my own geneological past.

Rating:
Summary: It's a Bittersweet Symphony
Review: Martin Goldsmith takes the reader on an incredible journey that gives a chilling glimpse of life in Nazi Germany and the power of love and the human spirit to survive. After listening to Goldsmith's wonderful voice and commentary for years on NPR's "Performance Today," I could actually hear his voice as I read the words of his poignant stories about his parents, grandparents, aunts and uncle. Everyone should read this book. It would also be a compelling classroom supplement for students of history and music. The story is unforgettable. After I finished reading the book, one line from the song by The Verve keeps popping into my mind: "It's a bittersweet symphony, this life..."

Rating:
Summary: Used
Review: This is a remarkable account of Martin Goldsmith's parents who survived the early years of the Nazi regine through music. I have, however, labeled this review as "used" because, as Goldsmith so wisely noted, the organization set up by the Nazis was a tool in their hands to placate the west into thinking that the Jews were NOT being mishandled. When the real schemes of Hitler and his henchmen became better known, the Jews were out of the picture. Fortunately for some, they (like Goldsmith's parents) were able to escape to America...but not all. Many in the jewish community could not see, or pehaps did not wish to see the horrors which were about to become realities. This account gives yet another view into the those days of the late 30s as Hitler was gaining more power at the expense of human life. What is disturbing is that so many in Germany were misled by the lies of this little man with the funny mustache. This could make a person wonder what lies are being told today, lies which are taking people down the wrong road. The book is a must read for anyone wishing to become more familiar with this awful time in human history. Goldsmith is to be commended for the effort. Lets hope that many of today's teens will be encouraged to read this account, an important work in the face of today's revisionists, those who would say the holocaust did not happen.

Rating:
Summary: a gripping Holocaust narrative
Review: This is a terrific book. Unlike other Holocaust memoirs, this one does not focus on the camps, but rather on the author's father, mother and grandparents who were (largely) spared thanks to their musical ability. The author does a great job reporting the years leading up to the Nuremberg laws and the pograms. In fact, it's kind of rare to read such a gripping account of the 10-15 year period preceding the camps. We really feel the righteous indigation that the Jews felt since they were such strong German patriots, many of whom had fought for Germany. Many considered themselves Germans first and Jews second. The author writes a gripping tale of music, culture and Nazi horrors -- my only small complaint is his heavy handed foreshadowing which seems entirely unnecessary since most of us know how the story turns out. The musical diversions and descriptions of concert repoirtoiry were fascinating in their own rite. Not to mention the irony of all the great German composers, yet after a while the Jews were not allowed to "sully" their music.
I was also impressed with his ability to view impartially the role of the Kunderbund -- some say it saved many a life while others say that it kept many Jews in Germany who would have emigrated earlier. The author presents both sides of the debate. The final chapters about the author's grandfather and uncle and the guilt his father bore show us once again how even far into the war many understimated the power of the Nazis. A rivetting read from start to finish.

Rating:
Summary: important, moving, modest
Review: This Martin Goldsmith is a multitalented guy . I knew his voice as the host of NPR's Performance Today, and this memoir of his (Jewish) parents' struggles and love in Hitler's Germany shows where he got his classical music genes. It must have taken a lot of courage to write this book -- Goldsmith explains how the Nazi terror was a taboo subject growing up , so we readers are fortunate that he had the courage to tell this beautiful story, and to tell it in such a modest, uncluttered, and elegant way . The chapter about the abortive attempt at escape on the St. Louis is a real cliff-hanger, and his account of the forced march of the jews, including the authors father and uncle, is chilling. Don't miss this one.

Rating:
Summary: A Very Moving Book
Review: This story was impossible to put down and when you finish, it stays with you for a very long time. Its hard to believe that Gunther and Rosemary didn't make every effort to help their parents emigrate to U. S. What really bothers me most is, not being Jewish, what would I have done in Germany in the late thirties and early forties when I saw these atrocities happening?

Rating:
Summary: A son's voyage of discovery of his parents' nightmarish past
Review: What do we really know about our parents' life before we were born? That depends largely, I guess, on how much of an interest we show - and on how much they are willing to reveal. Because in the life of every person there are instances and times they rather wish to forget, and not revive time and again by discussion, even if only among their nearest and dearest.

Such, in the lives of author Martin Goldsmith's parents, were the years from 1933 through 1941; so much so, in fact, that Goldsmith likens that time to the massive ash tree in the house of Germanic warlord Hunding, the setting of the first scene of Richard Wagner's opera "Die Walkuere:" Something looming large, yet never openly acknowledged. Because before George Gunther Goldsmith, furniture and home decorating salesman of Cleveland, Ohio, and his wife Rosemary, a violinist with the St. Louis Symphony and the Cleveland Orchestra, became American citizens in 1947, they had lived a whole other life - the hunted life of Jews in Adolf Hitler's Germany. And only years after his mother's death, on a trip to his father's home town of Oldenburg, did Goldsmith catch the first glimpses of what was hidden behind that massive ash tree, and George Goldsmith began to talk about the events which his, the Goldschmidt family had witnessed there; as well as the early life of Rosemarie nee Gumpert in Duesseldorf, the couple's first meeting in Frankfurt, and their later life in Berlin until their lucky escape to the United States. Beginning with this visit, Martin Goldsmith retraced his family's path to the early years of the 20th century, when his paternal grandfather Alex Goldschmidt took residence in Oldenburg, and his maternal grandfather Julian Gumpert settled in Duesseldorf.

How intensely personal this voyage into the past must have been becomes clear in the account of Goldsmith's visit to Oldenburg prison, as a participant in a march retracing the path taken by the Jews - among them the author's grandfather - driven through the streets of Oldenburg in 1938 by Nazi thugs, to later be shipped off (at least temporarily) to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. But although he writes about his very own family, and now in full knowledge of their fate, Goldsmith's narrative is in no way sentimental. With a journalist's detachment he talks about Guenther and Rosemarie, Alex, Julian and their wives and other children; turning a nonfiction account whose outcome is clear from the very start into a heartstopping tale few would be able to believe if presented with it under colors other than that of the plain historic truth.

Prominently featured in Goldsmith's account is the Jewish Culture Association, or Juedischer Kulturbund; as of 1933 the German Jews' only permitted artistic organization, in whose orchestra Guenther and Rosemarie had met and which had formed the center of their life until they finally left the country. One of the most controversial institutions of Nazi Germany, it reunited what was left of the country's Jewish musicians, artists, writers and composers - providing a modicum of shelter in an increasingly hostile environment, but also a convenient tool in the Nazi propaganda machine. Were the members of the Kulturbund instrumentalized to deceive public opinion, at home and abroad, about the true intentions of Hitler's government? By giving their Jewish audience a sense of comfort and "belonging," did they also prevent some of them from rescuing themselves when there still would have been time? The surviving members of the "Kubu" and their families, interviewed by Goldsmith, come down on both sides of the issue; and the fate of the survivors is probably as symptomatic as that of the many who ultimately did perish in Nazi concentration camps - chiefly among those the Kulturbund's charismatic founder Dr. Singer, who not only let himself deceive into returning to Germany after already having reached the safe shores of the U.S. but saw a mark of distinction even in his deportation to the "model" concentration camp of Theresienstadt.

Yet, for Guenther and Rosemarie the years with the Kulturbund were dominated, above all, by the musical companionship they experienced. What does seem to have haunted them most for the rest of their lives, however, was their very escape to America, while their remaining family members were stuck in Europe and, one way or another, died in Hitler's concentration camps - and the feeling that with a little effort they just *might* have saved at least some of them. The letters of Alex Goldschmidt and his younger son Helmut, written to Guenther from captivity in France after their own unsuccessful attempt to flee to Cuba, are among the most chilling testimonials contained in this book; and the decision to translate and include them conceivably cannot have been an easy one for Goldsmith. Indeed, it apparently was the knowledge of his family's fate that, all talent and love of music aside, eventually compelled George Goldsmith to forever retire the flute which, in his life as Guenther Goldschmidt, had been the only item of true importance besides his beloved wife Rosemarie; thus punishing himself in a way no outsider could have done. Yet, the couple's gift for music lives on in their son, who in his own way has brought many hours of joy to radio listeners all over the U.S.

Martin Goldsmith's "Inextinguishable Symphony" - named for Danish composer Carl Nielsen's Fourth Symphony, which sets music, as a parable for life itself, against war, terror and destruction - is as much a personal journey of discovery as a journalist's account of historic facts; seeking to understand rather than to judge. It deals with a time in which morality was thoroughly upset by a profoundly immoral regime, which cannot possibly have remained without effect on anybody who witnessed those events. In applying our own values to those facts, I think we would all do well in being careful to, likewise, make a thorough effort to understand before we judge. Goldsmith's insightful account is a great place to begin such a process.

Rating:
Summary: A son's voyage of discovery of his parents' nightmarish past
Review: What do we really know about our parents' life before we were born? That depends largely, I guess, on how much of an interest we show - and on how much they are willing to reveal. Because in the life of every person there are instances and times they rather wish to forget, and not revive time and again by discussion, even if only among their nearest and dearest.

Such, in the lives of author Martin Goldsmith's parents, were the years from 1933 through 1941; so much so, in fact, that Goldsmith likens that time to the massive ash tree in the house of Germanic warlord Hunding, the setting of the first scene of Richard Wagner's opera "Die Walkuere:" Something looming large, yet never openly acknowledged. Because before George Gunther Goldsmith, furniture and home decorating salesman of Cleveland, Ohio, and his wife Rosemary, a violinist with the St. Louis Symphony and the Cleveland Orchestra, became American citizens in 1947, they had lived a whole other life - the hunted life of Jews in Adolf Hitler's Germany. And only years after his mother's death, on a trip to his father's home town of Oldenburg, did Goldsmith catch the first glimpses of what was hidden behind that massive ash tree, and George Goldsmith began to talk about the events which his, the Goldschmidt family had witnessed there; as well as the early life of Rosemarie nee Gumpert in Duesseldorf, the couple's first meeting in Frankfurt, and their later life in Berlin until their lucky escape to the United States. Beginning with this visit, Martin Goldsmith retraced his family's path to the early years of the 20th century, when his paternal grandfather Alex Goldschmidt took residence in Oldenburg, and his maternal grandfather Julian Gumpert settled in Duesseldorf.

How intensely personal this voyage into the past must have been becomes clear in the account of Goldsmith's visit to Oldenburg prison, as a participant in a march retracing the path taken by the Jews - among them the author's grandfather - driven through the streets of Oldenburg in 1938 by Nazi thugs, to later be shipped off (at least temporarily) to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. But although he writes about his very own family, and now in full knowledge of their fate, Goldsmith's narrative is in no way sentimental. With a journalist's detachment he talks about Guenther and Rosemarie, Alex, Julian and their wives and other children; turning a nonfiction account whose outcome is clear from the very start into a heartstopping tale few would be able to believe if presented with it under colors other than that of the plain historic truth.

Prominently featured in Goldsmith's account is the Jewish Culture Association, or Juedischer Kulturbund; as of 1933 the German Jews' only permitted artistic organization, in whose orchestra Guenther and Rosemarie had met and which had formed the center of their life until they finally left the country. One of the most controversial institutions of Nazi Germany, it reunited what was left of the country's Jewish musicians, artists, writers and composers - providing a modicum of shelter in an increasingly hostile environment, but also a convenient tool in the Nazi propaganda machine. Were the members of the Kulturbund instrumentalized to deceive public opinion, at home and abroad, about the true intentions of Hitler's government? By giving their Jewish audience a sense of comfort and "belonging," did they also prevent some of them from rescuing themselves when there still would have been time? The surviving members of the "Kubu" and their families, interviewed by Goldsmith, come down on both sides of the issue; and the fate of the survivors is probably as symptomatic as that of the many who ultimately did perish in Nazi concentration camps - chiefly among those the Kulturbund's charismatic founder Dr. Singer, who not only let himself deceive into returning to Germany after already having reached the safe shores of the U.S. but saw a mark of distinction even in his deportation to the "model" concentration camp of Theresienstadt.

Yet, for Guenther and Rosemarie the years with the Kulturbund were dominated, above all, by the musical companionship they experienced. What does seem to have haunted them most for the rest of their lives, however, was their very escape to America, while their remaining family members were stuck in Europe and, one way or another, died in Hitler's concentration camps - and the feeling that with a little effort they just *might* have saved at least some of them. The letters of Alex Goldschmidt and his younger son Helmut, written to Guenther from captivity in France after their own unsuccessful attempt to flee to Cuba, are among the most chilling testimonials contained in this book; and the decision to translate and include them conceivably cannot have been an easy one for Goldsmith. Indeed, it apparently was the knowledge of his family's fate that, all talent and love of music aside, eventually compelled George Goldsmith to forever retire the flute which, in his life as Guenther Goldschmidt, had been the only item of true importance besides his beloved wife Rosemarie; thus punishing himself in a way no outsider could have done. Yet, the couple's gift for music lives on in their son, who in his own way has brought many hours of joy to radio listeners all over the U.S.

Martin Goldsmith's "Inextinguishable Symphony" - named for Danish composer Carl Nielsen's Fourth Symphony, which sets music, as a parable for life itself, against war, terror and destruction - is as much a personal journey of discovery as a journalist's account of historic facts; seeking to understand rather than to judge. It deals with a time in which morality was thoroughly upset by a profoundly immoral regime, which cannot possibly have remained without effect on anybody who witnessed those events. In applying our own values to those facts, I think we would all do well in being careful to, likewise, make a thorough effort to understand before we judge. Goldsmith's insightful account is a great place to begin such a process.

Rating:
Summary: Not Heroes!
Review: While the book was intriguing and often moving, I don't understand why the author seems to feel his parents were somehow heroic. Gratefully, they survived. That, in and of itself, is not heroic, however. I found it very disturbing that while his parents managed to escape to America, with great help from benevolent benefactors, it appears that neither his mother nor his father did anything to try and rescue their parents or siblings who were still trapped by the Nazi's in Germany or France. Moreover, the author's parents evidently wrote infrequently to family members in Nazi controlled Europe once they got to the United States even when the exchange of mail was still possible.