Joseph Toltz Book Presentation: Out of the Depths

Tells the story of a small songbook, produced in Bucharest in 1945 containing the first collection of songs from Holocaust survivors.
About this Event

Bucharest Romania, 1945: a small team of Polish Jews gather in a house set up by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to support recently liberated survivors of the camps and ghettos. While compiling legal testimonies from those who come for food, provisions, and advice for safe places to resettle, they notate songs of wartime experience, which are collected and printed in a short run, and distributed to various people and organisations.

Sydney Australia, 2013: one of these fragile song books is found in the estate of a survivor in Sydney, preserved from deterioration by chance, gently pressed between pages of another music score. It is one of only 5 remaining copies in the world.

Thirteen years later, the songbook is reborn as Out of the Depths: the first collection of Holocaust songs. Dr Joseph Toltz and Associate Professor Anna Boucher have spent the last 13 years traveling four continents, investigating archives, tracing the stories of those who contributed to the original project. Critically acclaimed by James Loeffler (Johns Hopkins), Samuel Kassow (YIVO), Hasia Diner (NYU) and many other scholars, this event will launch the book in the USA. Similar to launches in Australia, the melodies of the songbook will be woven around the stories of the songs themselves. Joseph Toltz will be joined by Professor Michael Beckerman on piano for this special event.

This event is made possible by the Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music