Alma Rose

by Newman, Richard; Kirtley, Karen

• ISBN13: 9781574670516
• ISBN10: 1574670514
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-04-01
• Publisher: Amadeus Pr

Summary

Alma Ross's story first came to public attention through the intriguing 1980 film Playing for Time. The true story of this heroic woman is now told for the first time. Rose was born to musical royalty in Vienna when the imperial city was the center of the musical world. Her father was violinist and concertmaster Arnold Rose; her uncle was Gustav Mahler. In the 1930s she founded and led a brilliant womens touring orchestra. Like many other Viennese Jews, the Rose family was caught off guard by the rise of Nazism. Alma assisted her family to flee but was herself caught and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. There, Alma again formed and led a women's orchestra---the only women's musical ensemble in the Nazi camps---thereby saving the lives of some four dozen women. In telling Alma's full story, the authors honor her and the valiant prisoner-musicians for whom music meant life.

Author Biography

Richard Newman has been an award-winning journalist, entertainment columnist, music critic, travel writer, and features editor for forty-five years at the Winnipeg Tribune, Windsor Daily Star, and London Free Press Karen Kirtley is a freelance editor and writer and managing editor at Timber Press

Table of Contents

Preface	9	(6)
Editor's Note	15	(2)
Prologue: Alma Maria Rose	17	(2)
Musical Royalty: The Background	19	(13)
A Fine Musical Nursery	32	(10)
War	42	(11)
Double-Edged Sword	53	(16)
Waltzing	69	(15)
Blood and Honor	84	(6)
Anschluss	90	(12)
Black Wednesday	102	(13)
Another Blow	115	(9)
The Need to Sacrifice	124	(11)
Rebirth	135	(21)
Musical Fortress	156	(18)
Council of War	174	(14)
Flight	188	(11)
Enter Alosis Brunner	199	(12)
Instant Nightmare	211	(15)
Mandel's Mascots	226	(23)
The Music Block	249	(11)
Escape into Excellence	260	(18)
The Orchestra Girls	278	(9)
Frau Alma	287	(11)
Death in the Revier	298	(12)
Reverberations	310	(15)
Epilogue: Memories of Alma	325	(4)
Notes	329	(28)
Interviews and Major Sources	357	(5)
Bibliography	362	(14)
The Mahler-Rose Family	376	(2)
The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz-Birkenau	378	(6)
Camp Glossary	384	(5)
Index	389