Aleksander Kulisiewicz

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Aleksander Tytus Kulisiewicz (born August 7, 1918 in Krakow ; † March 12, 1982 ibid) was a Polish journalist and singer .

Life and camp detention

Aleksander Kulisiewicz grew up in Krakow. His mother Isabella was a music teacher, played piano and violin and came from Hungary . Aleksander also learned to play the violin, but had to give up the instrument after an electrical accident. After the early death of his mother, the seven-year-old boy and his father, a high school teacher, moved to Karwin, then Silesian .

After graduating from high school, Kulisiewicz, who had already performed as an art piper, joined a student ensemble and went on tours to Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria . With a circus, where he was the assistant of a clown named Max Winkler, he came to Vienna.

In Germany- occupied Poland, Kulisiewicz studied law and earned some money as a journalist. At that time he was a member of the Polish Democratic Youth Association (ZMPD). In response to an article he wrote, “Heil Butter! - Enough Hitler ! ”He was arrested in 1939, at the age of 21, and in 1940 deported by the Gestapo to Sachsenhausen concentration camp .

He quickly became known there as a singer and joined the also imprisoned composer Rosebery d'Arguto . Because of his good memory, numerous fellow prisoners entrusted him with their very own and personal songs, which Kulisiewicz learned by heart. Kulisiewicz himself wrote 50 camp songs and 130 poems and set thirteen texts by other authors to music.

He survived imprisonment and began documenting all of these songs after liberation in 1945. In addition, he dictated 716 pages of songs in four languages ​​to his nurse in the Krakow hospital.

post war period

After the war, Kulisiewicz was able to make an international name for himself as an interpreter of concentration camp songs (“The Singer from Hell”). His performance aimed not to smooth the songs and to bring them as close as possible to the way they were sung (often at risk of death) in the camp barracks: with a fragile voice, without regard for sound and harmony. In addition, Kulisiewicz appeared on the stage in concentration camp uniform .

His performances moved the audience. At least some of his murdered fellow prisoners were able to survive by remembering their songs. The Jewish death song (1942) of Rosebery d'Arguto, who was murdered in Auschwitz in 1943 and which Kulisiewicz repeatedly performed at concerts , became famous . Only a few people in the world still sing this today, including the Yiddish stage performer Daniel Kempin and Kempin's student, the German-Czech Yiddish singer Anna Werliková , so that it is carried on from one generation to the next.

For his living, Kulisiewicz worked as a correspondent and editor for Polish magazines. While traveling through Poland and other Eastern European countries, he held conversations with survivors and compiled an extensive archive. On microfilms, 52,000 meters of tape and in 800 folders, he documented the genesis of over 600 Polish concentration camp songs and 200 songs by prisoners from other nations. The archive also contains sketches, watercolors, reproductions of sculptures and poems from 21 different concentration camps.

Kulisiewicz had his first appearances in Western Europe in Italy , in the theater of Bologna . He performed in Munich and Stuttgart with the songwriter Peter Rohland . Concert tours also took him to the USA . In 1964, the German Academy of the Arts in Berlin (later the Academy of the Arts of the GDR) contacted him. In 1967 he performed at the Waldeck Festival The Engaged Song at Waldeck Castle . In 1968 he sang at the International Essen Song Festival . In Czechoslovakia his life was filmed; an illustrated book about his life was created in Japan . He found little recognition in communist Poland. Only programs with Polish folk songs were produced by the state radio. Only shortly before his death did a long-playing record with concentration camp songs appear in Poland.

The last few years

In old age, as a diabetic, Kulisiewicz was dependent on constant care from his son Krzysztof Kulisiewicz and the nurse Anna Urbas. His last visit to Germany was in August 1981 on the occasion of the Bardentreffen in Nuremberg .

Aleksander Kulisiewicz died on March 12, 1982 in Krakow, where he was buried on March 18 in the Salwator Cemetery at the foot of the Wawel .

Quotes

  • "I survived the Nazi era, but I never left the concentration camp." (Aleksander Kulisiewicz)
  • “Now he was standing in front of us. And you had the feeling that what we are doing there is a pretty poor handicraft that claims to make a tremendous statement. But this man - it was no longer about art, also no longer about making a statement, something suddenly became visible: what we write and sing against, this man had already been through with all the agony. "( Hanns Dieter Hüsch )

Awards

Works

  • Il canzoniere internazionale dei ribelli. Edizioni Discografiche DNG (LP), Turin 1965.
  • Canti dei camp, di esilio e di prigiona. Raccolti et annotati a cura di Sergio Liberovici . I Dischi dei Solo (LP), Milan 1966.
  • Songs from hell. Da Camera Song (LP, SM 96011), Heidelberg 1981.
  • Alex sings Polish folk songs. Da Camera Song (LP, SM 95018), Heidelberg 1968.
  • Chants de la deportation. Le Chant du Monde (LP, LDX 74552), Paris 1975.
  • Songs from the Depths of Hell. Folkways Records (LP, FSS 37700), New York 1979.
  • Sadly Whisper the Leaves of the Willow: Polish Partisan and Folk Songs. Folkways Records (LP, FSS 37340), New York 1980.
  • Pieśni obozowe. Z hitlerowskich obozów koncentracynich. Polskie Nagrania muza (LP, SX 1715), Warsaw 1981.
  • Address: Sachsenhausen. Literary snapshots from the concentration camp. Claudia Westermann (Ed.), Translation by Bettina Eberspächer . Bleicher Verlag , Gerlingen 1997, ISBN 3-88350-731-8 .

literature

  • Stephan Rögner: A Pole dedicated his life to the anti-fascist struggle. In: folkmagazin. Journal for Folk Song Cabaret, Volume 9 (1982), No. 1–2, p. 3 ff.
  • Andrea Baaske: "Songs from Hell." The musical reception of Aleksander Kulisiewicz in the German folk movement. Master's thesis, Freiburg i. Br. 1996
  • Wieland Ulrichs: Concentration Camps and Their Songs. In: Politisches Lern, Vol. 2003, H. 1–2, pp. 123-137

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kulisiewicz, Aleksander
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kulisiewicz, Aleksander Tytus (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish journalist and singer
DATE OF BIRTH August 7, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Krakow
DATE OF DEATH March 12, 1982
Place of death Krakow