In 1942, the Nazis established a unique ghetto/concentration camp outside Prague in an old army garrison known as Terezín, which the Germans renamed Theresienstadt. Terezín was a prison to thousands of scholars, performers, musicians, actors, writers, and philosophers. Overwhelmingly Jewish, these prisoners turned to the arts and humanities as both balm and sword. They performed, created, taught, lectured, and composed not merely as entertainment, but as necessity and nourishment, as critical to staying alive as eating and drinking.
Defiant Requiem highlights the most dramatic example of intellectual and artistic courage: the remarkable story of Rafael Schächter, a brilliant young and passionate Czech opera-choral conductor who was sent to Terezín in 1941. He was determined to sustain courage and hope for his fellow prisoners by enriching their souls through great music. His most extraordinary act was to recruit 150 prisoners and teach them the Verdi Requiem in a dank cellar using a smuggled score over multiple rehearsals, after grueling days of forced labor. The Requiem was performed on sixteen occasions for fellow prisoners. The last, most infamous performance occurred on June 23, 1944. With only sixty prisoner-singers remaining following massive deportations, Schächter was ordered by the Nazi camp commander to perform the Requiem before high-ranking SS officers from Berlin and the International Red Cross to support the myth that the prisoners were well treated and flourishing.
Following the screening of the film, there will be a discussion with Murry Sidlin, Founder, President, and Artistic Director of the Defiant Requiem Foundation.