Music and Genocide (Studies in Social Sciences, Philosophy and History of Ideas)

At first glance, no two experiences could be further apart than genocide and music. Yet real, live culture usually goes beyond rational divisions. It is now fairly commonly known that art is not absent from the sites of mass killings. Both victims and prosecutors engage in artistic activities in prisons and camps, as well as at other places where genocides take place. What is the music of genocide? Can the experience of ultimate terror be expressed in music? How does music reflect on genocide? How do we perceive music after genocide? What is music and what is silence in a world marked by mass killings? Is post-genocidal silence really possible or appropriate? The goal of the volume is to reveal and, maybe even to some extent, resolve the most profound dilemma that was expressed by Theodor W. Adorno when he asked «whether it is even permissible for someone who accidentally escaped and by all rights ought to have been murdered, to go on living after Auschwitz.» It is not for the sake of pure curiosity that the relation between music and genocide is examined. In a sense we are all survivors who accidentally escaped genocide. It might have happened to us. It may still happen. Cover 1 Table of Contents 7 Foreword (Wojciech Klimczyk) 9 Bibliography 21 Ouverture 23 Music, the “Third Reich”, and “The 8 Stages of Genocide” (M. J. Grant, Mareike Jacobs, Rebecca Möllemann, Simone Christine Münz, and Cornelia Nuxoll) 25 Introduction 25 Stanton’s “The 8 Stages of Genocide” in the context of genocide studies 26 Music and the “8 Stages of Genocide” 31 A. Stages 1, 2, 3 (Classification, Symbolisation, Dehumanisation) 32 B. Stages 4, 5, 6 (Organisation, Polarisation, Preparation) 42 C. Stage 7, Extermination 52 D. Stage 8, Denial 56 Summary and Conclusions 59 Bibliography 62 Part I – Testimonies 71 Geok Tepe Muğam: A Musical Narrative of Turkmen Massacre in 1881 (Arman Goharinasab & Azadeh Latifkar) 73 Introduction 73 The Narratives of the Catastrophe 74 Socio-political Evolutions in the 19th Century 74 The Geok Tepe Battle 75 The Poets’ Narratives 76 The Narrators 78 Musical Narratives 80 Turkmen Music Styles 81 Geok Tepe Muğam 82 Conclusion 83 Bibliography 83 The Functions of Music within the Nazi System of Genocide in Occupied Poland (Katarzyna Naliwajek-Mazurek) 85 Introduction. The Social, Psychological, Ethical, Historical Aspects of Music within the Nazi System of Detention and Extermination 85 The Social Psychopathology of the Nazi Conscience and the Functions of Music within a Genocidal Context for the Perpetrators and their Victims 86 Aestheticisation of the Nazi Ideology and Music as Metaphor 88 The Ideological and Social Roles of Music in Camps through the Lens of Social Psychology 90 Music in Camps as a Complex Mechanism of Control, Humiliation and Domination 92 Entertainment versus Degradation 98 Music as Self-defence, Music as a Survival Ploy against Dehumanisation 99 Mass Killings and the Sound of Music 103 Bibliography 103 The Aural Landscape of Majdanek (Joanna Posłuszna and Łukasz Posłuszny) 107 Forms of Music in the Concentration Camp 108 “Majdanek Radio” 110 Sounds 114 The sounds of the power and violence 115 Operation Erntefest (“Harvest Festival”) 118 Conclusion 121 Bibiliography 122 White-Power Music and the Memory of the Holocaust (Kirsten Dyck) 123 What is White-Power Music? 124 Burying the Holocaust in White-Power Song Lyrics 125 Denying the Holocaust in White-Power Song Lyrics 129 Celebrating the Holocaust in White-Power Song Lyrics 131 Conclusion 134 Bibliography 138 Interlude 141 The Holocaust – the Code of Death without the Alphabet of Life (Leszek Sosnowski) 143 The Incomparability Thesis 144 Lebenswelt – Todeswelt: the Worlds of the 20th Century 147 Bibliography 152 Part II – Tributes 155 “ as if the shame before the victims would be offended” – Adorno’s Verdict on Arnold Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw (Ralph Buchenhorst) 157 Introduction 157 A Survivor from Warsaw: Material, Compositional structure, Context 159 Schoenberg, Music, and Politics 162 Adorno, the Arts, and the Shoah 164 Verdicts in Dialectical Movement: Adorno’s Interpretation of A Survivor from Warsaw 166 Conclusion: Considering the Context Dependency of the Shoah’s Memory 167 Bibliography 169 Towards a Critical Understanding of Representational and Semantic Issues within Hanns Eisler’s Score for Nuit et Brouillard (1955) (Matt Lawson) 173 Bibliography 188 “We remember”: The Trauma of the Holocaust in Krzysztof Penderecki’s Work (Joanna Posłuszna) 191 I. 191 II. 199 III. 205 Bibliography 209 Coda 211 Impossible Music? On Genocide as Silence (Rwanda, Auschwitz and Beyond) (Wojciech Klimczyk) 213 Words 213 Genocide 216 Silence 218 Nonidentity vs Totality 220 Music 222 The Name 224 Bibliography 226 Afterword: Genocide, Music, and the Name (Lawrence Kramer) 229 Bibliography 240 Contributors 241 What is the music of genocide? Can the experience of ultimate terror be expressed in music? How does music reflect on genocide? How do we perceive music after genocide? What is music and what is silence in a world marked by mass killings? Is post-genocidal silence really possible or appropriate? This volume explores possible answers to these troubling questions