Alfred Cahn

Alfred Cahn (born March 27, 1922 in Speyer ; died February 4, 2016 in Milwaukee , Wisconsin ) was a German-American composer and organist .

Life

Cahn grew up as the son of a tobacco dealer in Speyer. He learned the piano at an early age and began to accompany the congregation on the organ in the Speyr synagogue . On the night of November 9-10 , 1938, the synagogue was cleared out by SA and SS men and set on fire. As a Jew, Cahn was at risk and was supposed to be brought to the Dachau concentration camp as a so-called action Jew . With the help of his uncle, he managed to escape to Rotterdam and later to Brussels . In the end he was captured and taken to Camp de Gurs . There he was used as a slave laborer . In Gurs he composed the song We are very young trees , which he rehearsed with a children's choir and performed in the internment camp.

He then managed to escape from the camp with the help of the YMCA . He emigrated to the United States via Switzerland in 1948, where he worked in Milwaukee (Wisconsin) as a composer, music teacher and music director. Persecution, imprisonment and flight are part of the exhibition Train of Remembrance . Cahn was the only survivor of the deportation of Jews from Speyer to Gurs.

In 2000 he returned to his old home. He performed the play Kol haSchana in the historical council chamber of Speyer . In the same year, students from Nikolaus-von-Weis-Gymnasium performed the play We are very young trees in the old town hall in Speyer. Cahn, who was present, took over the piano. This recording is available on CD Erinnern - Gedenken - Mahnen (2002) together with other recordings by Cahn. On the commemoration day for the victims of National Socialism in 2001, he conducted the choir and orchestra of the grammar school, with which he remained on friendly terms. After 2002 he was unable to travel to Germany for health reasons and so missed the inauguration of the Beith-Shalom synagogue . The high school continues to commemorate the composer on a regular basis.

literature

• Franz-Georg Rössler: Alfred Cahn - composer from Speyer: life, work, relation to the city . Festschrift. Speyer: 2007.
• Franz-Georg Rössler: On the 90th birthday of the Speyer composer Alfred Cahn. In: Quarterly magazine of the tourist association. Speyer: 2012. No. 52 (2012) pp. 33-35.

Discography

• 2002: Remembering - Commemorating - Dunning (Nikolaus-von-Weis-Gymnasium)

Web links

• Literature by and about Alfred Cahn in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Alfred L. Cahn. Legacy.com, accessed February 9, 2016 . 
2. ↑ Evangelical Church in Baden and Evangelical Church of the Palatinate (ed.): October 22, 1940 - Deportation of Jews from Baden, Palatinate and Saarland to Gurs. Building blocks for lively remembrance in church and society . 2010, p. 37 .
3. ↑ Palatine babble again: Peter Sauter visits former Speyer Alfred Cahn in the USA. Speyer aktuell, July 14, 2011, accessed on March 10, 2015 . 
4. ↑ Marc Vidmyaer: Emigrants. Historischer Verein Speyer, January 7, 2014, accessed on March 10, 2015 . 
5. ↑ Manfred Erlich in Speyer: Willing to fight ready to resist. Train of Remembrance , accessed March 10, 2015 . 
6. ↑ Gerhard Cantzter: So that they are not forgotten - memorial plaque unveiled on 51 Jews from Speyer who were deported to Gurs in 1940. (No longer available online.) Speyer Kurier, November 2, 2013, archived from the original on February 19, 2015 ; accessed on March 10, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ↑ NvWG students make music with Alfred Cahn (Text from 2002). Edited by Nikolaus-von-Weis-Gymnasium ( Memento from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
8. ↑ Memorial hour on March 27, 2012: 90th birthday of Alfred Cahn. Edited by Nikolaus-von-Weis-Gymnasium ( Memento from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive )