Artur Gold

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The Gold-Petersburski-Band (top left Artur Gold)

Artur Gold (born March 17, 1897 in Warsaw , † 1943 in the Treblinka extermination camp ) was a composer, violinist and orchestra leader of Jewish origin who was well-known in Poland .

Life

Gold's parents were Michał and Helena Melodysta. Little is known about Gold's life prior to 1922. What is certain is that after his father's death he spent a few years in England, continued his musical training there and apparently came into contact for the first time with the increasingly popular jazz music from 1918 onwards . At this time he is said to have also worked in English dance bands, with which he presumably also recorded records. After returning to Warsaw in 1922, he and his cousin Jerzy Petersburski founded a jazz band, the Petersburski & Gold Orchestra. With this orchestra he became very well known in Poland and between 1926 and 1930 made recordings for Efte and Syrena Rekord in Warsaw (later, from 1929 Syrena-Electro). In 1929 the German Lindström Group expanded , which until then was only represented in Poland with the Beka record label . The labels Odeon and Parlophon were also introduced (later Columbia) and own recording studios were opened in Warsaw. Especially in the early years the house chapels of the Polish Odeon and Parlophone changed constantly. For a short period between 1931 and 1932, Artur Gold's chapel was part of the large number of house chapels (among others under the direction of Henryk Wars , Iwo Wesby , Zygmunt Karasiński and Józef Zuck , Władysław Eiger , Arkadi Flato and finally, until the beginning of the war, Jerzy Gert ) and Jerzy Petersburskis. In 1929 Artur Gold performed in the Adria restaurant . He lived in Warsaw from 1929 and performed with his brothers Adam and Henryk , who were also musicians. In 1940 he was forced to move to the Warsaw ghetto ; there he performed in the Nowoczesna restaurant .

The orchestra of Artur Gold and Jerzy Petersburski was one of the earliest dance bands in Poland based on the American model. The line-up probably included Jerzy Petersburski (piano, conductor), Artur Gold (violin, conductor), Bronisław Bykowski (violin), Bazyli Jakowenko (double bass / tuba), two unknown trumpeters, a trombonist, Franciszek Witkowski (alto saxophone ) until around 1929 / Clarinet), another unknown tenor saxophonist and clarinetist, Leon Szulc (banjo) and Kazimierz Roczyński (percussion). Franciszek Witkowski was later also a member of the jazz band of Julian Front and the Syrena-Rekord dance orchestra under the direction of Henryk Wars (from 1931) and in the late 1930s also directed his own dance band. The orchestra line-up of the Gold / Petersburski band at the time with the Odeon record company was probably already different. However, the exact change in personnel can no longer be traced these days.

The orchestra recorded all forms of dance music popular at the time. In the early years especially Foxtrots and Charlestons, but later also many tangos and from the beginning of the 1930s also some Rumbas. The musicians had jazz ambitions, which only occasionally come into their own in the form of short improvised solos. Artur Gold and Jerzy Petersburski also composed their own signature tune, the Foxtrot "Gdy Petersburski z Goldem gra" ("When Petersburski plays with Gold"), which they also recorded on record for Syrena-Record in Warsaw in 1926 (matrix number: 17815 , no order number). In addition to its recordings, the orchestra was best known for its regular appearances in the famous Warsaw night club "Oaza" in the 1930s. Both Kapellmeister were also famous pop composers in pre-war Poland. Petersburski's "Tango milonga" from 1929 became a world hit under the title Oh, Donna Clara , but Artur Gold also achieved great success with songs such as the blues Gdy zakwitną bzy or the Foxtrot Chodź na Pragę . In Polish revue programs of the 1920s and 1930s, for example, Gold and Petersburski are listed as composers more than the average.

Stay in Treblinka

1942 Artur Gold was taken to the Treblinka extermination camp deported . Kurt Franz , the deputy camp manager, saw him with his violin on his arrival at the extermination camp and forced the professional musician to form an orchestra. For the prisoner orchestra, consisting of up to ten musicians, under the guidance of Gold, there were practice hours during which the musicians were exempt from any work. They later wore a tailcoat-like uniform made of white and blue silk with an oversized bow tie.

In the first weeks of the camp, the orchestra played lively operetta melodies near the gas chamber to drown out the screams of the victims in the gas chambers , which was then turned off. It was used for evening roll calls with marches and Polish and Yiddish songs. In 1943, the musicians appeared in boxing matches, small plays and dance performances in the camp. The 14-year-old accordion player Edek was among the musicians with gold .

After a song had been written by Walter Hirsch, Kurt Franz forced Gold to compose the melody for the so-called Treblinka hymn Fester Tritt . This song had to be sung by the inmates two or three times after roll call, when marching to work, on return and again during evening roll call.

With steady steps and gaze straight ahead,
always courageously and happily looking into the world
, the column marches to work.
For us today only Treblinka counts,
which is our fate.
That is why we
switched to Treblinka after a short period of time.
We hear the tone of the commanders.
and follow them on the hint
and walk together at
every step for everything that duty demands of us.
The work should mean everything to us here
and also obedience and duty,
we want to keep doing,
until we get lucky once in a while.

A few weeks before the SS abandoned the Treblinka camp in 1943, then dismantled it and tried to cover up traces, Gold was murdered in 1943.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed September 25, 2009.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.thoughts.com  
  2. ↑ a b accessed on May 8, 2013
  3. ↑ a b Biography of Jerzy Peterburski , accessed on September 25, 2009 (English)
  4. ↑ Playback of a tango on youtube by Henryk Gold, Artur's brother
  5. ↑ Source: Tomasz Lerski: Syrena Record - pierwsza polska wytwórnia fonograficzna. Editions "KARIN" New York / Warsaw 2003, ISBN 83-917189-0-5 .
  6. ↑ recorded by his brother Henryk Gold's orchestra in 1929 on Syrena-Electro 6337.
  7. ↑ recorded by Kazimierz Szerszynski with the Henryk Wars Orchestra 1930 on Odeon O. 236074. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gx-Fj518FiQ
  8. ^ Tomasz Lerski: Syrena Record - pierwsza polska wytwórnia fonograficzna. Editions "KARIN" New York / Warsaw 2003, ISBN 83-917189-0-5 .
  9. ↑ Treblinka trial judgment: LG Düsseldorf dated September 3, 1965, 8 I Ks 2/64 ( Memento of the original dated March 21, 2014 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed September 25, 2009  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.holocaust-history.org
  10. ↑ When asked why music was played in the extermination camp, a survivor from Treblinka, Samuel Willenberg, answered: Treblinka camp. P. 223: “ To ridicule what was going on there. They played for the Germans at lunch in front of the dining room window. They played after roll call after there was a beating. We sang the song "Góralu, cy ce ni źal ..." so that they could hear in the surrounding villages that there was life here. The farmers then said: They sang! And the Germans shouted: Louder! "
  11. ^ Richard Glazar: Trap with a Green Fence: Survival in Treblinka. 117. Northwestern University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-810-111691 (English)
  12. ↑ Glazar: Survival in Treblinka. P. 119 f. (see literature)
personal data
SURNAME Gold, Arthur
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish jazz musician
DATE OF BIRTH March 17, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Warsaw
DATE OF DEATH 1943
Place of death Treblinka extermination camp