The day began as usual.

Reveille when it still was dark.

"Get out!" Whether you slept or whether worries kept you awake the whole night. You had been separated from your children, from your wife, from your parents. You don't know what happend to them ... How could you sleep?

The trumpets again. "Get out! The seargent will be furious!" They came out; some very slowly, the old ones, the sick ones, some with nervous agility. They fear the sergeant. They hurry as much as they can. In vain!

Much to much noise, much to much commotion! And not fast enough! The Feldwebel shouts!

"Achtung! Stilljestanden! Na wird's mal, oder soll ich mit dem Jewehrkolben nachhelfen? (imitating the manner of speaking and the shrill breaking voice of the sergeant)

Na jut, wenn ihr's durchaus haben wollt!"

The sergeant and his subordinates hit everyone: young or old, strong or sick, guilty or innocent ...

It was painful to hear them groaning and moaning.

I heard it though I had been hit very hard, so hard that I could not help falling down.

We all on the ground who could not stand up were [then]

beaten over the head ...

I must have been unconscious. The next thing I heard was a soldier saying, "They are all dead!"

Where upon the sergeant ordered to do away with us. There I layed aside half conscious. It had become very still - fear and pain. -

Then I heard the sergeant shouting, "Abzählen!" They started slowly, and irregulary: one, two, three, four; "Achtung!" The sergeant shouted again, "Rascher!" Nochmal von vorn anfangen! In einer Minute will ich wissen wieviele ich zur Gaskammer abliefere! Abzählen!"

They began again, first slowly: one- two- three- four, became faster and faster; so fast that it finally sounded like a stampede of wild horses, an all of a sudden, in the middle of it, they began singing the Sh^ema Yisroel ...

(Schönberg, A Survivor from Warsaw I, 3-17)

Der liturgische Gesang des Männerchores folgt. Das Trompetensignal zu Beginn der Kantate erscheint nicht allein als musikalischer Reflex des nationalsozialistischen Terrors. Die Schilderung der Vorgänge im Warschauer Getto ist zugleich Ereignis eines sich erinnernden Bewußtseins. Die Fanfare symbolisiert die vergangene physische und die akute psychische Bedrohung durch die Erinnerung. Sie erklingt in der ersten und zweiten Trompete unter Beibehaltung des ersten bis vierten Tons der verwendeten Zwöftonreihe in melodischer Spiegelung (Beispiel S. 58). Die melodisch gespiegelte Form bringt das Spiegelverhältnis von Vergangenheit und Gegenwart zum Ausdruck. Die erinnerten Vorgänge spiegeln sich durch den Affekt der Angst in der ästhetisch dokumentierten Gegenwart ihrer Schilderung. Die Einheit von Vergangenheit

 INHALTSVERZEICHNIS