We Remember: Songs of Survivors

Woman: The trust that Tibor is placing in me is such a privilege.

I'm so honored to have him share his stories with me, and I'm eager to bring that to life in a song that will speak to him.

♪ Man: Well, good morning, and welcome back to "The Roundtable."

What if you had the chance to listen to living Holocaust survivors?

"Honoring Holocaust Survivors: A Concert of Resilience and Hope" will be held May 5 at 1:00 at Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh.

[Musicians warming up] Woman: I'm overwhelmed with emotions.

I really want to cry, but I can't afford to cry in front of everybody, so... To be recognized, it's amazing.

[Cheering] Woman: And our musical director Julie Last.

[Cheering] The theater's right through there.

[Indistinct chatter] [Applause] Woman: The moment I walked into Tibor's home, him and his wife Noemi, they are so full of life, so full of love, and that first day, Tibor kept saying again and again, "Everything is changing moment to moment, and our opportunity, our gift as humans is to choose joy."

So it's been such a privilege, Tibor.

Thank you for welcoming me into your life, and, um, this is for you.

1, 2, a 1, 2, 3, 4.

♪ [Wind chimes ringing] Woman: I fell in love with this possibility of bringing out the wisdom and the stories of elders to be available to the community at large.

Primarily what we've done is worked with songwriters who would be willing to be trained to sit and listen deeply to the life experience and stories of elders.

I am so sorry I'm late.

Colette: You know, it's good timing because I was just launching into an update, and everyone's kind of introduced themselves, so-- OK. We're not gonna redo all that, but-- OK. Michael.

Hi, Michael, I'm Jenn.

Colette: First of all, yeah, catch your breath.

Hi, Jenn.

Bonnie.

Hi, Bonnie.

I'm Jude.

Woman: Holocaust survivors have been telling their stories, whether it's in memoirs, or there's been documentaries.

Let's think about a creative way for survivors to tell their story.

Colette: We were approached by Jewish Family Service, who were attracted by the work we were doing and wanted to partner to honor Holocaust survivors artistically through songs, which is distinctly different than how they've been honored in the past.

[Knock on door] Hey there, Rita.

Hi, hi.

Hi.

I'm back.

Good.

Ha ha ha!

That's good.

Good to see you, good to see you.

Yeah, same here.

Same here.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Elise: Everybody that works with the survivors must be trained in person-centered trauma-informed approach, PCTI approach.

One thing that I have seen-- you might be talking with them, you might be in the middle of sipping tea or whatever it might be, doing something with them, and all of a sudden, they are gone.

They just went to that moment.

[Hitler speaking German] Elise: Many people have triggers, and we certainly don't want to reactivate the trauma.

[Air raid sirens, explosions] Sights, smells, sounds can bring up severe unrest.

Saying simply, "It's time to take a shower," that could put a survivor in a state, right?

I would not wear black boots with my pants tucked in.

If I have a dog-- I bring my dog with me everywhere, and she happens to be a German Shepherd.

No matter how friendly she is, no.

[Dogs barking and growling] ♪ The song does not have to be about the Holocaust.

The stories told does not have to be about how you survived.

It could be how you find great joy in making matzoh ball soup with your great-grandchildren.

Colette: We are going to go where they want to go, that this is about them and not an agenda that we have.

♪ Rita: I'm living here since 1949.

In the end of June, you know?

1949.

Michael: I could tell that she was a little wary of me, you know?

You know, "Who is this guy, and what's he doing here, and what's this song thing that they're talking about?"

There was years and years I didn't talk about it.

Years.

It took me a while, you know?

Once I started talking, I couldn't-- couldn't stop more or less.

[Insects chirping] Michael: Initially, I was-- you know, I approached it like-- I didn't really want to bring it up, you know, the Holocaust.

She hadn't said a word about it for many years, kept it completely quiet.

As she got older, her son said, you know, "Hey, you should share your experience so that the next generation knows what really happened."

♪ They were on the run after Kristallnacht.

They had to get out.

They were being hunted down and shot or put on trains and taken to Auschwitz.

People would take them in and hide them, trying to get to the United States.

There were family members that had gray frames around their pictures, and those were the ones that, you know, didn't make it.

What can I tell you?

Some of them perished in the Holocaust, and my--and my son put them on the gray backgrounds.

My uncle ran away-- I told you-- jumped out of the window, and he ran away, and he got caught at the border, and he got shot.

♪ Yeah.

This is my mother and father.

Those were his parents.

They had a small grocery store, and they took them all out in front of the store and just mowed them down.

They also had a daughter and a son.

They got shot, too.

Michael, voice-over: She keeps circling back to that--you know, telling the story.

She wants the story told.

Rita: At Kristallnacht, they--they arrested my father.

He--he had instructions.

"If you don't leave in 24 hours, you're going to the Dachau."

So he had to leave.

When I saw them take my mother away, too, I said, "Oh my God."

I ran to her--her sister.

She said, "You go home and watch your brother, and let's see what happens."

I was running back home, and as I came around the corner, here were two--two-- two SS men, and they said--they said, "Oh, look at her.

She"-- But I ran.

♪ Tibor: I was 12 years old when we were supposed to be deported, to be killed.

It was supposed to be a labor camp but not a death camp.

♪ But we found out that it was a death camp because somebody escaped, and they told us what was going on there.

Nobody believed it.

[Buzzer] Kelleigh: Every I time I go and visit, it is such a pleasure.

Tibor is full of joy.

Big, bear hugs.

Mmm!

Ahh!

Oh!

Ha ha ha!

Come here.

Give me your coat.

OK. Kelleigh, voice-over: There's an ease for him in sharing and conveying the facts of what happened, and sometimes it comes across as matter-of-fact.

He's not experiencing distress or emotion when he's sharing horrific stories.

We were talking to other people.

"Don't go into those cattle cars.

"It's not--it's not a labor camp.

It is a death camp.

It is a trap."

People were laughing at us.

"Are you crazy?"

You know?

We ran away into the forest and hid in a forest for several months under the snow.

We miraculously survived.

This is a map of where we were hiding.

You see, this is how we built it.

We cut out the--a triangle.

Here was a little creek.

Then we built a--like, a skeleton, and we inserted it into the triangle.

He is a stump, hollow stump through which we were breathing.

This was all camouflaged, and the opening was here, where we crawled in and out, and we had to survive 7 months, 200 days.

♪ [Clattering] It was worth living as long to make this trip.

I delayed it for--for 57 years because I was afraid of it.

Not anymore.

Kelleigh: That time that he spent with his family in the ground, it's such a pivotal part of his story and in his life.

He's gone back to find it.

There's actually footage of him looking for it a long time ago.

He's so young in it.

See, here is a situation exactly as--as we needed.

See, a steep hill, and then it would probably be an opposite hill, and the hole was on the side of that hill, and a tiny creek running in the bottom of the hill.

[Grunts] See, a mushroom?

This is what we ate all fall until the snow fell.

This is what I was doing part of the day, collecting food, and most of the time, then, motionlessly lying down and try to control my mind so that I wouldn't go-- get insane.

♪ Freide: I never wore this.

When the Germans in Antwerp said, "You have to wear it," the first day I got it, I took it off and put it in my shoe.

I was just a teenager.

I said, "No way will I wear that."

In a country where I'm free, I'll always wear a star.

Woman: Ahh.

[Rooster crowing] The whole experience working with Freide has taught me an enormous amount about the strength of the human spirit and how that light doesn't need to go out even when there's such hardship.

Knowing her past but also the joy that she has an older grandmother now is a really powerful teaching of what we can overcome as human beings.

Freide: My brother, because he was young and strong and an athlete, he got an order to meet in one of the groups in Antwerp, because they want to give him a job.

And we believed it.

So my brother went, and, uh, we never saw him again.

I decided at that point that I was not gonna go into hiding, that I wanted to do more.

I dyed my hairs blonde.

I wanted to meet some people that were in the resistance, and I got all kinds of assignments.

You could not survive if you didn't get ration cards.

So I would bring ration cards to people that were hiding.

Elizabeth: Freide would also find children whose parents had been taken away.

She would take these children to hiding places.

She saved something like 18 children.

Freide: My father had given some money to so-called friend.

He said, "I'm going tonight to get some diamonds because we need money."

And he left and he said, "I'll see you tomorrow."

And tomorrow came, and my father didn't come back.

And I went and I said, "I don't know where my father is."

And they said, "Well, your father is dead."

And that was... [Voice breaking] the hardest thing I had to do.

I had to go back, tell my family that.

She almost felt apologetic telling me about these things.

"I'm sorry that this is so heavy for you to hear."

And for me to just hear that, "Please... you know, "this is...

I'm here to listen and to bring that to music."

♪ Man: My job is to-- is to help you tell your story to your community and to the world at large in a way that works for you.

Hi.

I'm Tom.

Hey, I'm Jude.

Nice to meet you.

Woman: Hi.

And the two of us together will construct a song over-- I don't have to sing, do I?

Not unless you want to.

Are you a musical person?

Not at all.

I can barely turn on the radio.

OK. Ha ha!

Woman: Hi.

Man: How we doing?

Woman: I'm OK. How are you?

[People talking indistinctly] Woman: Yeah, me too.

Oh.

Woman: Yay... Hey, Jude.

Woman: Hi.

How you doing?

Jude: He told me that his relatives and he felt that most Jews at, you know, at that time, didn't take it seriously and didn't really understand what was happening until it was too late.

Woman: Yeah.

Tommy: What other kind of jolly news can I impart upon you?

I have no other family.

They were all wiped out in the Holocaust.

I would have had, besides my parents, 13 sets of uncles and aunts.

My parents wound up in a work camp in France.

It was a coal mine, a forced-labor coal mine.

My father and his brother worked in the coal mine.

And one evening, the knock on a door, and my mother opens the door.

And there's a troop of French Nazis.

"Pack your stuff.

You're coming with us."

And since I was an infant, I was a few months old, my mother let me sleep.

And as they're ready to go out the door, she picks me up, and the gendarme said, "Well, which family does the baby belong to?"

Said, "Well, he's ours."

"OK, you can stay.

The others, go."

And my uncle and aunt were never seen again.

I think Tommy feels that everything is kinda slipping away from him.

Mm-hmm.

And I think his wife is slipping away.

You know, she's slipping into another dimension.

Mm-hmm.

This is my wife when she was about 18.

Isn't she a thing of beauty?

She is so beautiful.

I keep thinking about when I first met her.

I was on a blind date.

I came home, and my mother's sitting in the kitchen waiting for me.

She says, "How was your date?"

And I said to her, "I just met the girl I'm gonna marry."

Tommy: My wife has been in a nursing home for the last 3 years with the dementia, Alzheimer's, you know, whatever label you put on it.

The worst day of my life was when I walked in and she had no idea who I was.

Jude: The last visit that I had with Tommy was sitting at the nursing home in Poughkeepsie with him and his wife.

And I came up to meet them and sit with them for a while, and I brought my guitar.

Jude: There's a song I wanted to play you that I haven't--I haven't performed in a very long time, but it's an original song.

Jude: It's a love song I have about a broken connection.

Suzanne immediately started to sing along as though she knew the song.

So she was, like, a millisecond behind me.

but something about the way her brain was processing the music was happening so quickly that she was basically... singing along with me, with a millisecond delay.

Both: ♪ Meet me on the shore ♪ ♪ Sing for me just a little more ♪ ♪ And hold me in your gaze ♪ ♪ We'll not soon forget the days ♪ ♪ When our shamelessness was all we wore ♪ ♪ Yes, we'll know why part of us has died ♪ ♪ I don't need to tell you, I don't need to tell you ♪ ♪ I don't need to tell you anymore ♪ Tommy: I love sitting with her.

I put my arm around her, and I just... ♪ And she really hasn't changed much over the years.

She's a little grayer, a little bit more wrinkled, but just as cute as she was then.

Jude: Yeah.

[Music ends] [Shofar making high-pitched tone] ♪ [Squeaking notes] Wow!

I can do it much, much longer.

I--I looked at you and started laughing.

Ha ha ha!

Kelleigh: So I'm figuring, like, the first verse is the story of you talking about noticing, like, the-the boiling of frog, of, like, people disappearing.

Suddenly they take this, they take that.

And then with that first verse and chorus ending with your decision to go into the woods and preparing it and getting in there to survive.

♪ Da da da ♪ ♪ Da da da da dum ♪ ♪ Da da da da da da da da dum ♪ I feel a little nervous about the time pressure to get this all done.

[Playing several notes] Kelleigh: I like to record my interviews with him and then transcribe them.

Once I get them written down and I start to find key phrases, I'm hoping just one of them will let me in.

And then I can--can start to tell the story.

I'm a little...mystified as to why the lyrics aren't coming in the way they have for me in the past when I've worked with other SageArts elders.

I feel like the weight of his life and all that he has been through, it's such a big-- it's so big, you know.

So I don't have the little small way in yet.

I'm looking for it.

[Banjo playing slow tune] Michael: ♪ I see gray skies when the others ♪ ♪ Cry each morning, sisters, brothers... ♪ Michael: You know, I think I mentioned I've started some lyrics.

Um, internally, she's a very strong optimist, despite everything that she's gone through, you know?

She's got this spirit about her that is just, you know, like, "Plow ahead, move on," you know.

So I'm trying to work it all into a feeling of, really, no matter how dark the day is, you know, it's still-- the sun is still gonna break through, kinda thing, you know?

What I gathered from you is that all the stuff that you've gone through, you still have an optimist's really-- You haven't got a choice.

Yeah.

And you--you chose to-- I get my bad days.

Yeah, yeah, I bet.

Plenty of times.

Yeah.

[Sirens] Michael: She brought it up first.

She brought up the Tree of Life shooting in Pittsburgh.

She said, "Did you see that?"

you know.

I said, "Yeah."

Says, "Everybody got triggered.

Every Holocaust survivor got triggered by that."

Woman: Mmm.

No, I bet.

You know, I felt that that was a really good moment to tell her that she had been my inspiration for my own personal PTSD episode that I went through.

You know, I said, "Well, it involved a priest."

And the first thing she said was, "And I bet you didn't tell anyone."

And I said, "No, I didn't."

She says, "Nobody ever does.

It was different back then."

You know, and then she-- she talked about Germany.

She said, "Oh, it was just horrible what was going on, "you know, with-- with young girls "and the Germans and everything.

And nobody would talk about it."

Rita: So sing.

Let's see-- Michael: I'm gonna sing you a song.

Go ahead.

Let's do that.

[Playing slow guitar tune] ♪ ♪ The sun still shines above the darkness ♪ ♪ On the days we've lost our way ♪ ♪ When everything can feel so heartless ♪ ♪ The sky, she always smiles above the gray ♪ ♪ When all appears undone... ♪ So I've begun working on Freide's piece, and I'm aware that it's gonna happen in 3 acts.

Um...the last piece, which brings us to the present moment of Freide's life, it seems like, uh... that piece should be sung by Freide.

So I know that she is a singer, a coloratura soprano, in her past.

And I would like to ask her if she would sing in the last act of her own life story song.

♪ How lucky I am ♪ ♪ How lucky I am ♪ ♪ How lucky I am ♪ ♪ Elizabeth: Hello, Freide.

Freide: Hi, darling.

Good to see you.

Look at you.

Look at that.

Isn't she gorgeous?

Isn't she gorgeous?

It's all tied up.

I don't have to do nothing.

Freide, voice-over: Music was very important in my life.

I don't think I would have survived if I didn't have music.

There was a story she told about standing outside of the window where the music was coming from.

There was live music, and she couldn't go inside.

They could have put me in jail for--if they would have realized that I was not legal, but I did go to it.

She went in and sat in the front row with her hair dyed blonde, and she knew at any moment that they could point at her and that would be it, but she wanted to listen, and so she went in disguise and she did.

Elizabeth: When I saw her yesterday, she said, "I'm gonna make it to the concert, I'm gonna make it," because... Mm-hmm.

they give her four months.

Mmm.

Woman: Oh, wow.

Woman 2: So she's still really-- She's very ill... Wow.

but she's willing to do this and she's willing to sing.

[Playing a ballad] [Sings indistinctly] [Singing soprano indistinctly] ♪ ♪ Life is always-- ♪ Yeah, I know.

Ha ha!

Ha ha!

But I'm going down a-- Wait, wait, wait.

You see this?

a whole octave.

Ha ha ha!

I can't get to that G. What do we do?

Let's--let's-- [Chuckling] You sing it.

No way.

[Piano fades out] [Playing a folk tune] ♪ Let me hold you to my chest ♪ ♪ As we sail from east to west... ♪ Jude, voice-over: I think I came in with the idea that I was gonna do an historical document, and I began to realize, in meeting with Tommy, that what's really important to him is family and his relationships with his living family, and in particular, his relationship with his wife, Suzanne.

That is the most important relationship in his life, and I felt that I would be remiss if I didn't work that into the song, so the focus of the song has now become his wife.

[Playing a folk tune] ♪ When your thoughts ♪ ♪ Are lost at sea ♪ ♪ I will be your memory ♪ [Song ends] [Background piano ballad playing] ♪ Kelleigh: Free.

Finally free.

But childhood memories choke and sting.

I find the easel like a sign from God.

It's time.

Release, in sparks of color.

The brooding in the brow... the pleading in the hand... the terror in the open mouth.

Tibor: I felt an urge to heal said wound, which was sitting there open, bleeding, and I found out that when I painted a picture of somebody who--who died, or of a scene from that Holocaust, that it healed me somehow.

You ask me not to be angry, to forget, to forgive, but could you at least let me sometimes be sad?

Tibor, voice-over: At the end of the war, when we were hiding in the shelter, I heard voices, and they were suggesting to me all kinds of things, uh, and, uh-- Kelleigh: Like what?

Like what?

Like how to survive it, what--how to feel, how to--what to suppress, what to let go, uh, how to change my--my behavior.

I was so...hard, uh, and prepared to defend myself.

I was ready to kill.

I was ready to do anything, anything which normal people would not do because it was-- my rational mind was telling me, "If he tries to kill me, let's kill him first.

Very simple."

Uh, and then the voice was telling me... if I don't, uh... shed a tear, I will--heh!--I will not get out of-- of this situation.

And when those things really were falling on us, and that war was around us, I truly felt sorry for people around me, how they suffered.

And I remember how it came down... [sighs] down my--my cheek.

And the war was over in a few days.

♪ [Music fades out] Michael: What do you think, Sidney?

We got it going here a little bit.

It's, uh, maybe not quite as finished as--as it's gonna be, but we got a start.

What--what are your thoughts?

Well, truthfully, your song is kind of, um, "upbeat's" the wrong word, but there's not enough sadness in it.

The Holocaust, it was-- you understand photography.

If you take--if you take a red filter and put it--and screw it onto the camera lens, everything gets colored red.

Michael: Right.

Sidney: The Holocaust filtered my whole mother's life, my grandmother's life.

Right.

There's a sadness there that never left.

Michael: You know, I--I spent a lot of time talking with her and, you know, keeping notes and writing down what she has to say, and she projects this very strong optimism.

So that was the first draft, and that's what you heard, you know-- And--and the thing is, I think she must have, uh, two personalities-- a public one where she is more positive and wants to project more positiveness.

Right.

But on her own, and when she's not in public, there is the sadness there because there are times that, you know, it--it haunts her.

Yep.

Uh, I get it.

I hear what you're saying, you know?

And the melody's wonderful.

Thank you.

That was magic.

That came out of the...thin air.

I don't know where it came from.

It just-- I didn't even have to work.

It just flowed out.

And there's a very haunting quality about it, so it--it's quite-- it's quite powerful.

[Lively piano playing] Elizabeth, voice-over: And but this song is broken up into three distinct sections, and I had to go through her whole life because it's phenomenal.

She left on the--on a boat, on the Admiral Goethals, and there were 650 brides coming to the States, and she said that was a whole comedy opera in itself.

[Women laugh] So we will be making a boat and bringing it onstage, and I will need some brides.

Freide, voice-over: John Cage and Merce Cunningham, they came to my son's bar mitzvah.

Here's Merce Cunningham and John Cage, and these are all very interesting people.

Heh!

Want to see a picture of Andy Warhol that I got from him?

Boy, was he ever a character.

[Man chuckles] Here.

Oh.

Heh heh!

I got that from him.

Elizabeth: She was living the entire contemporary art and music movement, so we're bringing all those things in.

There'll be a live painter, there'll be a dancer, um, and there'll be-- my friend Henry with the radio is playing the part of John Cage.

And then the third part is Freide coming onstage, and she's gonna sing the end.

She was an opera-- she sang at the Met, um, so she has a very specific part.

Woman: The finale.

Heh heh heh!

Yeah.

Colette: Jude, do you want to say anything before we, um...go?

Jude: Uh, yes.

I--I have gone in a different direction...

So you can hear?

than, uh, the--the snippet that you guys heard the last time is a completely different song now.

Jude: I simplified it quite a bit.

Colette: Uh-huh.

So I think what's coming out is a simple-- almost a country song.

I'm gonna visit with Tommy and Suzanne today, and I want to see how both she and Tommy respond.

If you're OK with it, I'll, uh, I'll play a little bit of it.

[Strumming notes] [Playing a ballad] Josh: ♪ Nameless family photographs ♪ ♪ Faces with no epitaphs ♪ ♪ People disappeared into the night ♪ [Strings join in] ♪ Losing all your memories ♪ ♪ Is just some heartless ruse ♪ ♪ Suzanne ♪ ♪ [Music stops abruptly] Colette, on phone: Hi, this is Colette.

Hope you're doing OK.

Uh, I'm calling because I have some sad news I need to share with you, uh, about Tommy, and I want to talk to you, so call me back.

All right.

[Slow piano playing] Jude, voice-over: Michele contacted me and told me that Tommy had passed away.

My first reaction was... "I just blew this because I should have finished the song sooner."

My second reaction was, "Now I've got to really "do my best to connect with Tommy "in a spiritual sense and really write the song according to what I know he would have wanted it to be."

♪ Michele, voice-over: For me, it felt like--[exhales]-- the closing... [Birds chirp] the closing of a theme song from a movie, if you picture your life being a movie.

It just kind of summed up his life, you know?

The song starts with-- he's just a baby boy, and... without him, his parents wouldn't have survived or anything else--[sniffles]-- and it goes on to say how much his wife was the light of his life, his dog Sandy.

[Sniffles] [Guitar playing] It was an honor and a tribute to him, and I wanted him to hear it.

Jude: ♪ Here's the little girl you carried ♪ ♪ Here we are, the day we married ♪ ♪ Sledding down that hill ♪ ♪ Without a fool's care ♪ ♪ And this puppy in the frame ♪ ♪ That one, Sandy was his name ♪ ♪ I brought him home ♪ ♪ To take your fears away ♪ ♪ Love is all around ♪ ♪ In endless hues ♪ ♪ Suzanne ♪ ♪ [Indistinct] Kelleigh: Does anybody have any questions about any of the parts before we...?

There's the one major line: ♪ Da da daaah, da da da, da da ♪ ♪ ♪ Da da daaah, da da da, da da ♪ ♪ Bom bom... ♪ Julie, voice-over: The rehearsal process is short and hectic.

There's not enough time to get everything smoothed out the way we would all wish, but everyone has taken on this project with such heart that we've all come together to kind of bring our best selves to this.

And if it's not perfect, it doesn't matter.

It will be beautiful.

♪ Singers: ♪ A-a-yom ♪ Yom.

Boom.

♪ A-a... ♪ Well, good morning, and welcome back to "The Roundtable."

Julie Last joins us, as well, Musical Director of SageArts.

Good morning, Julie.

How are you?

Hello, Joe.

So tell us a little bit about that process.

Julie: The songwriters work one-on-one with these incredible people who have these amazing stories and have this wealth of wisdom, and then we present it in a concert.

And that concert is a way to share these stories in a way that is more accessible to people.

[Applause] [Plays chord softly] ♪ ♪ ♪ Once the days were full of laughter ♪ ♪ Chasing dreams and mornings after ♪ ♪ Always just as it should be ♪ ♪ Before the crowds began to scream ♪ ♪ Right here, as days would turn to rain ♪ ♪ ♪ Right here, the days all turned to rain ♪ ♪ ♪ Kristallnacht changed us forever ♪ ♪ With its boots and flags and terror ♪ ♪ A new world full of fear and running ♪ ♪ Tears and prayers and endless waiting ♪ ♪ Here, for all the rain to end ♪ ♪ ♪ Right here, pray the rain will end ♪ ♪ ♪ No words to speak, better to remain silent ♪ ♪ ♪ Each day to keep ♪ ♪ A survivor's resignment ♪ ♪ And to see it's all lined up for the absent ♪ ♪ Lives who met with the violence ♪ ♪ Michael, voice-over: It was-- it was a game-changer for me.

It showed me the power of music in a way that I didn't--I'd never been there before.

I went into this thing, "We got to write a song," you know?

I mean, that's all I was thinking about.

And I'm a very linear person, so the first thing is, the first step is, we get the song title.

[Laughs] You know?

And--and by the time we got to the end and I looked back, and I realized the progression and the steps that were taken, and what it--what it ended up being, I couldn't have imagined it.

It just was a journey.

I mean, I can't believe we did it.

And it came out just-- just so magical.

Rita: What a wonderful experience.

Michael: It was like a dream.

Yes, yes.

When we first-- when we first met, oh, I didn't think that could be possible.

[Laughter] But with effort, everything is possible.

Anything is possible.

Yes, right.

[Applause] [Guitar music] ♪ Nameless family photographs ♪ ♪ Faces with no epitaphs ♪ ♪ People disappeared into the night ♪ ♪ All our steps were marked by pain ♪ ♪ Teardrops on a weather vane ♪ ♪ Emptiness unfolding in the cold light ♪ ♪ I was just a baby boy ♪ ♪ Holding to a shroud of joy ♪ ♪ Maybe I'm the only reason we survived ♪ ♪ When these men with angry eyes ♪ ♪ Came to call for the sunrise ♪ ♪ Left the parents and the baby boy alive ♪ ♪ ♪ I have memories I'd rather lose ♪ ♪ You forgetting everything ♪ ♪ Is just some heartless ruse ♪ ♪ Suzanne... ♪ Jude, voice-over: It's just really a difficult project.

When I thought about taking it on, I was honestly very reticent to do it.

It seemed like it was gonna be almost, like, too much for me.

Like, you know, do I really have the ability to reach into someone's soul and, you know, and file through their memories, and come up with something that's going to be good enough?

That's--that's a tough one.

[Applause] ♪ Michele: Thank you all so much.

This has really been bittersweet.

Let this music, just like the memory of the Holocaust, carry on.

My daughter is a musician, and I hope she carries this on as well.

Thank you.

[Applause] ♪ ♪ ♪ Oh, I remember his fire ♪ ♪ ♪ From Romania to Belgium, we started again ♪ ♪ ♪ My mother and father ♪ ♪ And my sister and brothers ♪ ♪ Prayers in our house ♪ ♪ And all of our friends ♪ ♪ ♪ The opera, the dancing ♪ ♪ The violin ♪ ♪ ♪ My voice a blooming flower ♪ ♪ Singing serenade ♪ ♪ ♪ Elizabeth, voice-over: The telling of this story through music was just so transformative and healing for so many all at once.

We can all be in that at the same moment together.

We were there with the elders, with their children, with their grandchildren.

And it was a place that we could all just be in together in that moment.

It's a life-saving thing, to be immersed in art and music.

So the mystery of that deepens for me after working with her.

♪ ♪ 650 brides on the Admiral Goethals.

♪ [Brides speaking foreign languages] ♪ ♪ Bride: Next port's to America.

[Brides speaking at once] Elizabeth, voice-over: I feel that at the end of life and my experience spending time with people who are at that stage of life, is that a lot of the barriers that we have just kind of start to come away because there's no reason to hold anymore.

I don't think that Freide needed a diagnosis for that for sure, but that falling away of those walls that we perhaps build around ourselves, they're just a lot thinner when we're approaching this mystery at the end of our life.

♪ ♪ How lucky I am... ♪ ♪ When my children come ♪ ♪ When I see no flowers ♪ ♪ Every day is new ♪ ♪ How lucky I am... ♪ ♪ When my friends call ♪ ♪ Standing with Rosa ♪ ♪ The birds at my window ♪ Elizabeth: ♪ How lucky I am... ♪ ♪ I am not afraid ♪ ♪ Not afraid of anything ♪ ♪ Every day is new ♪ ♪ 'Cause life is always changing ♪ ♪ Always changing ♪ ♪ Always changing ♪ ♪ Changing ♪ ♪ Changing ♪ [Cheering and applause] Elizabeth, voice-over: Freide was beaming... [Chuckles] in this beautiful blue dress.

And she just looked so happy.

[Applause] Yeah.

Freide: My only big message is, Please let's not ever, ever forget.

And I'm very grateful for the opportunity I had today.

I never thought at this point in my life, I would have such a wonderful experience, such a positive experience for me.

And I think showing that there is still good in this world and that we have to keep fighting for the good and for love of whatever is going on in this world.

Thank you very much... [Applause] [Indistinct] I love you.

Thank you.

One, two, a-one, two, three, four.

♪ ♪ A yellow star stitched on tight ♪ ♪ ♪ Strong boy catching trout by hand at night ♪ ♪ ♪ Kicked out of school ♪ ♪ Unwanted Slovak Jew ♪ ♪ Questions piling up ♪ ♪ Whispers of Auschwitz and lies ♪ ♪ ♪ When the trains come ♪ ♪ To the rooftops we run ♪ ♪ See the clinging and confusion ♪ ♪ In the lines ♪ ♪ Into the forest ♪ ♪ We disappear like mist ♪ ♪ All is changing ♪ ♪ We are witness, we are life ♪ ♪ Kelleigh, voice-over: The words can only tell so much, and the music is what really tells the heart part of the story.

You don't need to understand anything-- anything intellectually.

You just feel it.

♪ We are life ♪ ♪ Free, finally free ♪ ♪ The childhood memories ♪ ♪ Choke and sting ♪ ♪ I find the easel ♪ ♪ Like a sign from God ♪ ♪ It's time release in sparks of color ♪ ♪ The brooding in the brow ♪ ♪ The pleading in the hand ♪ ♪ The terror in the open mouth ♪ ♪ You asked me not to be angry ♪ ♪ To forget, to forgive ♪ ♪ Would you at least let me sometimes be sad?

♪ ♪ A-yom... ♪ ♪ A-yom ♪ ♪ ♪ A... ♪ ♪ A-yom ♪ ♪ ♪ A...a ♪ ♪ A-yom ♪ ♪ ♪ A...a... ♪ ♪ A-yom ♪ ♪ [Cheering and applause] I thank you, that I could appreciate-- I lived almost 90 years.

This was really a beautiful gift.

I didn't expect I would-- in my wildest imagination, imagine anything like this.

[Applause] For you.

Thank you.

[Applause] [Cheering and applause] Tibor: To help other people to feel good is the only thing worthwhile doing.

Rita: People have to learn what it was all about.

♪ Tommy: They could not believe what was going on.

Not just the Jews in Europe, but the Jews in this country said this can't be happening.

Freide: Maybe a few more people will become conscious of what we're all about, and there'll be a little bit better world for my children, my grandchildren, your grandchildren.

That's all we can strive for.

♪ ♪ Announcer: "We Remember: Songs of Survivors" is available on Amazon Prime Video.

♪ ♪ ♪