In this Dialogue, we turn to a remarkable and deeply moving project that brings new light to an aspect of Holocaust history often overlooked: the music composed and performed by prisoners inside Auschwitz. In conversation with composer, conductor, and researcher Dr Leo Geyer, we explore The Lost Music of Auschwitz — a project that uncovers, reconstructs, and reimagines the musical fragments created in the camp, offering an extraordinary window into both human creativity and human resilience amidst genocide.
Dr Geyer’s work began when he encountered a rare manuscript written by Mieczysław Krzyński, the deputy conductor of the Auschwitz I orchestra, whose compositions and arrangements were performed by inmate orchestras in the camp. These ensembles, made up of musicians from across Europe, were forced to play during marches, labour details, and acts of brutality, yet they also carved out moments of emotional survival through music. Tracing these fragments led to a multi-year research project uncovering further manuscripts, testimonies, and long-forgotten performance traditions protected by survivors long after the war had ended.
What emerges from this dialogue is not simply a discussion about recovering lost scores, but a powerful insight into the role of music as both coercion and consolation. Dr Geyer reflects on the challenges and responsibilities of reconstructing works that were never intended for the concert hall but were instead shaped by the extreme conditions of camp life. His re-orchestrations and performances aim to honour the historical realities of the musicians who created them, while opening space for today’s audiences to grapple with the humanity embedded in these fragile compositions.
The project has generated new performances, recordings, and public engagement, from his orchestral reconstructions at the University of Manchester to the BBC documentary exploring the rediscovery of the Lost Music of Auschwitz. These initiatives invite us to think about how cultural materials can survive genocide, how they deepen our understanding of the Holocaust, and how they continue to resonate in the present.
This Dialogue encourages educators, students, and the wider public to consider how music can become a pathway into the lived experience of prisoners. The music reveals not only suffering, but also creativity, memory, and the traces of individual lives nearly erased. Through the Lost Music of Auschwitz, Dr Geyer reminds us that even within the machinery of destruction, people continued to compose, to perform, and to assert their humanity in ways that still speak across the decades.