1. Index Number : P.II.b. No. 1197.
2. Title of Document : The Experiences of a Jewish Musician.
3. Date : 1903 - 1944.
4. Pages : 7.
Language : German.
5. Author or Source : Paul Lichtenstern, late of Berlin.
6. Recorded by : Mrs N. Wolffheim, London.
7. Received : April 1960.
8. Form and Contents : The author was born in Leobersdor F/Nieder-Österreich, lived in Vienna from 1913 - 1924, and then moved to Berlin. His widowed mother settled there, after the Anschluss, as she considered the Austrian Nazis to be even worse than the Germans (p.1).
The author was a radio and concert-pianist and held a State-Diploma as a teacher of music at the start of the persecution, which deprived him of one source of income after the other. He went to Antwerp, but after a stay of six months, had to leave Belgium. He returned to Berlin, the only other alternative being Austria, where he had experienced antisemitism, already many years before (p.1).
In Berlin, he worked for the Jüdische Kulturbund (p.1-2) and the Künstlerhilfe and thanks to his Austrian passport could go on concert-tours abroad.
Anti-Nazi Germans: The renowned singer Burchard Kaiser, in possession of the Goldenes Parteiabzeichen, would sing Schumann-Heine-Lieder telling the ignorant audience, that the poet was unknown. An innkeeper who put the anti-Jewish sign in a more hidden place (p.5).
Since 1939 the author has lived as a musician in England. In 1940, he married singer Johanna Metzger, late of Berlin whose father had been deported in connection with the Polenaktion, but could join his family in London, in the year 1939.
9. Further References : Preussischer Landesverband Judischer Geminden. Mrs Else Koch-Stabinkski; mixed marriage (p.2). Polish consulate, Berlin; rude behaviour. Polish passports. Non-Jews helping Jews (p.6). The author and his wife interned on the Isle of Man (p.4, 7).
The Experiences of a Jewish Musician
Paul Lichtenstern.
Date of birth: 19 February 1903.
Place of birth: Leobergdorf, Lower Austria.
Lived in Vienna from 1913-24, in Berlin from 1924-39.
Occupation: Pianist and Organist.
Johanna Metzger, born on 8 April 1916, married Paul Lichtenstern in 1940 in London.
Place of birth: Berlin, lived there until 1939.
Occupation: Singer.
Religion of both: Jewish.
Son: Bert David, born on 6 January 1944 in London.
Paul Lichtenstern already played the piano at the age of 5 without having lessons. When he moved to Vienna at the age of 10 he later gave other children in the higher middle school there piano lessons. He himself had private piano lessons.
From his schooldays he reports that he was the only Jew in the school of his home town, that he was called “dirty Jew” by other children.
In 1921 Lichtenstern was admitted to the Vienna Music Academy (Wiener Musikakademie), at that time he was also already performing in public. When his father died in 1924 he went to Berlin, followed soon by his mother. His mother moved there and back several times between Berlin and Vienna but moved to Berlin permanently after the Anschluss of Vienna because – as Lichtenstern emphasised – the Austrian Nazis had behaved even worse to the Jews than the Germans. In 1942 his mother was deported.
Lichtenstern continued to study at the Stern Conservatory (Sternsches Konservatorium) in Berlin where he was awarded the Holländer medal.
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In 1928 he gave his first piano recital, worked as teacher and accompanist and played at home and abroad on the radio. In 1930 he received his state certification as teacher. Lichtenstern described this development of his artistic career in order to show what prospects he had and what a position he already occupied in the musical world when the Nazis destroyed his career (see also attached sheet with reviews).
In 1932 he already stopped receiving radio engagements. After 1933 his state recognition as music teacher was revoked, but he cannot remember exactly when. According to the law he would have had to become a member of the Reichsmusikkammer but he was then expelled by them. He was no longer allowed to teach Christian students but the Jewish students also gradually stopped coming, which was a consequence of the panic reigning. In 1933 he already thought about emigrating and so in the summer of 1933 he went to Antwerp to relatives with a six-month visitor’s visa to check out the lay of the land. But he still did not get a residence permit because, being Austrian, he was able to go back to his home country which had not yet been taken by the Nazis.
However, Lichtenstern did not want to return to Austria because, as he said, there had been strong antisemitism there even before Hitler and the general political situation was quite unclear. He reported as example: in Vienna he had previously often played on the radio, as soloist and particularly as stand-in for Professor Erich Meller. From 1929 onward he was no longer given any engagements for which all kinds of excuses were given which presumably covered up the antisemitism.
So Lichtenstern returned to Berlin where in spite of the political Nazi situation he still had possibilities. In 1933 the Jüdische Kulturbund had been founded there in which he was involved, and he also
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soon worked for the “Künstlerhilfe”. In 1937 he became an organist of the Jewish Community, an activity which was interrupted for a while after the synagogue fires. As a result of his Austrian passport he was able to travel abroad unhindered on concert tours but when Hitler occupied Austria his passport was withdrawn, as a result of which Lichtenstern was inevitably classed as a German Jew.
After 1933 the Prussian Association of Jewish Communities (Preussische Landesverband Jüdischer Gemeinden) did its best to provide the Jews in the province with stimulation and encouragement in these difficult times and Lichtenstern was often involved in this. At every event there was a speaker, a singer and a pianist. The basic tenor of many a speech was The Rebuilding of German Judaism. The programmes had to be presented to the local Nazi authorities and there was a Nazi official present to supervise. It thus happened on one occasion that a Gestapo objected to the performances as their purpose was contrary to the intentions of the authorities. The speaker of the evening tried to refute this by emphasising that they did not mean material rebuilding.
A curious event took place in a small town in the Rhineland. The performance was held in a church hall where the singer of the evening – Else Koch-Standinski – sang Kol Nidre facing a picture of Christ. She was an Aryan opera singer who was married to a Jewish cantor.
On the occasion of this report Lichtenstern emphasises that he noticed on his travels that naturally Jews everywhere were obstructed and personally affected by the legislation but that there were nevertheless great local differences.
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The increasingly critical situation in Germany led Lichtenstern to seek again for a possibility to emigrate entirely. He succeeded in this with the help of a former pupil who was now in England. In August 1939, thus shortly before the outbreak of war, he arrived in London. Officially he was a guarantee case but it was a pseudo guarantee. He received support but paid it back later. At the end of 1939 he became an organist in the then newly founded German Synagogue in London. He also gave concerts as soloist and accompanist both there and in the Deutscher Kulturbund and at the Austrian Centre. However, in June 1940 he was interned and remained on the Isle of Man until November of the same year. After his return he built up his musical activity again as far as this was possible without an official work permit or only with occasional special approval.
Looking back, Lichtenstern told me in response to my question that he regarded the fact that he had not been sent to a concentration camp as pure luck. But another factor which probably played a role was that he had no money, that he was never politically active and then above all that he had been an employee of the Jewish community.
Since, apart from in his activities as an artist, he had never had a close relationship to Christians, the Nazi events probably affected him personally less than would otherwise have been the case. I quote now verbatim: “From the artistic point of view I lost everything since by nature and education I had a particular love of German music (Bach, Beethoven etc.). Nazism forbade me from performing such music publically (with exceptions) and all intellectual values were as if turned upside down. The entire musical life in Germany before Hitler
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and people’s attitude to music was so different from the English way of thinking that comparisons are impossible.”
To finish let me repeat two of Lichtenstern’s memories: “It was in the year 1937. Burchard Kaiser, a well-known singer, student of the Jewish tenor Max Mansfeld, and holder of the Golden Party Badge, approached me asking me to work with him. When I suggested that it might be better not to discuss this on the phone(he had phoned me), the singer said: I know what you mean but I would at least like to make up personally for some of all the injustice etc.
Burchard Kaiser made music with me a few times so that, as he put it, he could once again sing music (Krenek etc.), which he was no longer allowed to sing in public. He also told me that that although he often still sang Schumann's Dichterliebe (text by Heine and therefore forbidden), he simply said “author unknown”. These idiots have no idea anyway.”
In 1937 or 38 an experience during an excursion: “Many pubs and restaurants did not admit Jews. In a suburb in the east of Berlin I ordered something to eat in the garden of a restaurant. When I later discovered the usual sign inside the building and said to the waiter that I wouldn’t have come if I had seen it in time he answered: We had to take the sign but we have done our best to conceal it.”
[signed] Paul Lichtenstern
Johanna Lichtenstern nee Metzger left school in 1933 because antisemitism was already tangible there. She thus abandoned here plans to study. The class teacher did not want to allow this and did everything to stop her leaving school prematurely before graduating. But Johanna did not comply with the teacher’s wishes. She went to Denmark on Hachscherah, also learned housekeeping and
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in 1935 entered the Wolffheim Seminar for Kindergarten Teachers (vocational retraining programmes of the Berlin Jewish community) which she attended for 1 ½ years until graduating. She was then in charge of a private kindergarten. Johanna had a particularly vivid memory of the following experience. When she was out for a walk with the children a woman stopped, looked at a particularly pretty and distinctly Jewish-looking girl and said to the lady accompanying her ”Look at that Jew child! That something like that is still alive.”
In 1936 Johanna began her training as singer with Wilhelm Guttmann in Berlin.
In October 1938 Johanna Metzger’s father was picked up on the occasion of Operation Poland and deported to the East. Johanna saw him taken away and was shocked by the rough manner in which the Jews were treated. For example, the father of a girl-friend, who had a lame leg from the first world war, was pushed roughly into the cattle truck because things weren’t going fast enough for the Nazis, all the old people were treated in the same way. Johanna was seething with anger when she saw all this. The Polish consulate behaved even worse than the Nazis themselves. The scared women whose husbands had been taken away went to the consulate seeking advice and help. The officials there called the police and had the women thrown out.
Johanna took on the task of taking messages from the prisoners during the deportation to the families they had left behind.
A noteworthy episode was the friendly behaviour of an Arian couple living in the house, whose two sons were in the Hitler Youth: On the Friday evening after Herr Metzger had been taken away they took wine round to the back door as consolation and support for the Metzgers.
Up to then Frau Metzger had still had her Polish passport which was however, like that of all Jews, no longer renewed after 1939 in order to prevent the Jews from going back to Poland.
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One of Johanna’s sisters had already emigrated to England in 1937 and in June 1939 she succeeded in getting her mother to join her. The father also got to England shortly before the war as American relatives had sent him the money he needed for his release. Johanna waited in Berlin for the Domestic Permit, which only received at the end of July 1939, so that she was able to emigrate to England. Before that she had lived for a while in a Salvation Army hostel, a kind of shelter for the homeless. She made herself popular there by singing the hymns so beautifully with them.
Earlier – in 1938- she had got to know Paul Lichtenstein. A colleague of his was supposed to accompany Johanna Metzger at a concert. Shortly before the start of the concert he was picked up and deported and Paul Lichtenstern stood in for him. That was the beginning of a friendship which eventually led to their marriage in 1940 in England.
In May 1940 Paul Lichtenstein was sent to the Isle of Man, and Johanna, who had become an “enemy alien” though her marriage, was also interned and remained in the camp for 8 months.
After their release they first lived with her parents in very cramped circumstances. Johanna continued her singing studies, mainly with Sabine Kalter. The couple gave concerts together at refugee organisations and often before soldiers, particularly in Polish camps.
