Dawid Bajgelmann
Dawid Bajgelman , often also David Beigelman (born October 8, 1887 in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski , Russian Empire ; died in August / September 1944 or in February 1945 in a labor camp near Gleiwitz , German Reich ) was a Polish musician ( violinist , composer , conductor or . Kapellmeister) and theater critic.
Life
The early years and artistic successes up to 1939
Bajgelman alias Beigelman was born into a musical family (in addition to his parents seven brothers and a sister). At the age of 15 he began to train professionally, since 1905 he concentrated on playing the violin. Bajgelman was employed at the Scala Theater in Lodz, where the family moved after a stopover in Sosnowiec in 1912, as well as in the city's symphony orchestra. As a talented stage musician, he undertook early tours that took him through Europe and the USA and also composed operettas. Beigelman celebrated particularly great success with the music version of the old Jewish piece " Der Dybbuk ". In 1922 he also appeared at the New Theater in Kraków, and in 1926 Bajgelman went on tour with the same ensemble to Africa and South America. Back home, David Beigelman began to work as Kapellmeister at the tiny Jewish Azazel Theater in Warsaw. In the years that followed, Bajgelman worked on both Jewish and non-Jewish stages, in Lemberg and Warsaw, in Rzeszów and in his native Lodz. He wrote individual Jewish songs such as revues, operettas and dance pieces (foxtrot, tango and slowfox). But he also recorded records and appeared as musical director in the synagogue. He can even be proven as a guest author of musical essays (for example in the Yiddish-language “Najer Fołksblat” from Lodz).
Life under National Socialist Terror 1940 to 1944
The Jewish musician was arrested in the ghetto of his hometown Lodz from the spring of 1940. There Beigelman participated intensively in cultural life. He conducted the first ghetto symphony concert on March 1, 1941, followed by other musical Beigelman appearances up to the violent and extensive termination of Jewish cultural life in the Litzmannstadt ghetto at the end of 1943. In 1944 the artist was deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp . According to a source, Dawid Bajgelman died of exhaustion in a labor camp near Gleiwitz in February of the following year, just before he was due to be liberated. According to other sources, he was said to have been killed by a drunken camp elder in August or September 1944. Beigelman's legacy includes his composition “ Tsigaynerlid ” (Yiddish for “ Gypsy song ” ), with which he paid his respects to the Sinti and Roma who were persecuted and destroyed by the Nazis in the Litzmannstadt ghetto .
Familiar
Bajgelman was married to actress Anna Foderman. She died in the Lodz ghetto. Both son Pinchas Beigelman (1915–1981), also a musician, survived the war in the Soviet Union and in 1945 emigrated to the USA.
literature
- Kay Less : Between the stage and the barracks. Lexicon of persecuted theater, film and music artists from 1933 to 1945 . With a foreword by Paul Spiegel . Metropol, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-938690-10-9 , p. 382
- Zalmen Zylbercweig. Leksikon fun Yidish theater, Book one, column 161
- Aaron Kramer, Saul Lishinsky (eds.): The Last Lullaby: Poetry from the Holocaust. Syracuse University Press. P. 99. 1999
Web links
- Biography on savethemusic.com
- Dawid Bajgelman on ushmm.org
Individual evidence
- ↑ several sources mention the year 1888, but the deportation documents clearly show the date mentioned here
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bajgelmann, Dawid |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Bajgelman, Dawid; Beigelman, David |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Polish violinist, composer and conductor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 8, 1887 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski , Russian Empire |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1944 or 1945 |