Kol Nidrei as a Universal Emblem of Jewish Identity: Emma Schaver and the Evidence of Post-Holocaust DP Camps in American-Occupied Germany

• In Event: Music during and after the Holocaust

Abstract

In April, 1946, a now almost forgotten Jewish-American opera singer renowned in her day, Emma Lazarus Schaver, embarked on a six-month performance tour of the post-Holocaust DP Camps in American-occupied Germany. Her performing companions H. Leivick, Yiddish playwright, and Israel Effros, Israeli poet, returned to the U.S. after one month when their UNRAA permits expired. Shaver, however, a woman fervently committed both to spending as much time as possible with the survivor remnant, the She'erit Ha'Peleta, and to the possibility of healing these emotionally bruised and crippled survivors through music, persisted and traveled to the Czech border where she gained re-entry with the approval of the Jewish Agency for Palestine. Her own documentary record (memoir, diary entries, letters, documents, concert programs and photos) of her triumphs and travails, which included visits to over 50 DP camps in American-occupied Bavaria, has yet to be examined in depth. Preliminary evidence reveals a group of Jewish people starved for Jewish identity reinforcement. They represented a very wide spectrum of national origin, socio-economic levels and religious observance ranging from completely secular to ultra-Orthodox. Despite the wide diversity of Jewish practice and the obvious national/cultural distinctions of language, documentary evidence suggests that one single 'song,' the Kol Nidrei, an ancient Aramaic formula, became the emotional battle cry of these Jews during her concerts. At camp after camp, Schaver received cries for her to sing Kol Nidrei, a Mi Sinai tune from the Middle Ages, recited in synagogue only on one day annually, the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. This paper explores Emma Schaver's encounter with the DP Jewish survivors and investigates the enigma of why this particular composition, the Kol Nidrei, the only 'religious,' cantorial piece of music she ever performed in any of her concerts, had such deep emotional resonance universally for Jewish Holocaust survivors in the camps. The paper will present documentary evidence, heretofore unexamined, culled from the extensive archival materials held in the Emma Schaver Archive at the Walther Reuther Library, as well as an analysis of this musical expression of Jewish identity that transcended geography, age and belief.

Author

• Marsha Dubrow, The Jewish Theological Seminary of America