Henry Meyer (musician)

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Henry W. Meyer , born as Heinz Meyer (born June 29, 1923 in Dresden ; † December 18, 2006 in Cincinnati , Ohio ) was a German - American violinist and from 1949 to 1988 a member (2nd violin) of the LaSalle String Quartet .

Life

The son of music teacher and musician Harry Meyer (1891–1945), who perished in the Dachau concentration camp shortly before the end of the war in 1945, and the older brother of the young musician Fritz Meyer (1925–1943), who was murdered in Auschwitz at the end of March 1943, was an admired violinist of great talent even as a child. His teachers were his father and Jan Dahmen from the Semperoper . Heinz Meyer played in the Dresden Philharmonic at the age of eight . But in 1933 with the seizure of power by the Nazi regime ended his hopes for being Jewish.

In 1936 he therefore went to Prague to continue his education at the Conservatory. But even here he was discriminated against because Jews were not allowed to perform in orchestras. This left him with the Jüdischer Kulturbund , where he could play. In 1938 Dresden was invited to perform as a soloist at a concert. But on that day, November 9th, the pogroms took place , his father went into hiding and he was arrested.

His father turned himself in to the Nazi authorities to free his son. But Henry was deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp . Even in the concentration camp and after his release, he was repeatedly beaten by the SS. When he wanted to leave for London , the war was just beginning, so he had to return.

After his father and mother were abducted in the course of the deportations that began in 1942, he and his brother, the pianist Fritz Meyer, stayed behind in Dresden. Here they were subjected to various harassment and assaults by the Gestapo and SS. In 1943 they were deported to Auschwitz concentration camp , where his brother Fritz was murdered. In Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp he was lucky enough to be able to play in a prisoner orchestra. A Jewish doctor had given him the papers of one of the dead, so that he was one of the few who was able to escape his death determined by the SS.

Towards the end of 1944 he was transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp and then transported to Buchenwald concentration camp two days later. There he was transferred to the Ohrdruf forced labor camp , a subcamp of Buchenwald. By chance he was able to see a report according to which all Jews were to be shot. So he took a chance to escape and went west for a week towards the American front.

With the US troops, he had the opportunity to speak to General Patton , who transferred him to Paris for special interrogations. There he also met General Eisenhower . He stayed in Paris until 1948 when he moved to the USA. In New York he received a place at the Juilliard School of Music . Here he met the violinists Walter Levin and Peter Kamnitzer from Berlin , with whom he joined the LaSalle String Quartet founded by Walter Levin in 1946 . The quartet first performed in Germany in 1954. They played together in this quartet until it was dissolved in 1988. Meyer later worked as a professor at the University of Cincinnati in the College-Conservatory of Music Cincinnati (CCM).

In 2004 he was involved in a serious accident, but he was able to recover from it. On December 18, 2006, he died of heart failure at Christ Hospital. His last residence was in Cincinnati at Deupree House in Hyde Park.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Henry W. Meyer on deathfigures.com
  2. ^ Music and the Holocaust. In: http://holocaustmusic.ort.org/ . Retrieved December 28, 2017 (English).
  3. ↑ Jane Prendergast: Famed musician injured in hit-skip. In: http://enquirer.com/ . March 4, 2003, accessed December 28, 2017 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Meyer, Henry
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meyer, Heinz (maiden name); Meyer, Henry W.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American violinist
DATE OF BIRTH June 29, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH December 18, 2006
Place of death Cincinnati , Ohio