Tomorrow Parliament commemorates 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz

EP President Roberta Metsola will open the formal sitting for the International Holocaust Remembrance Day (27 January) on Wednesday at 12 noon. Her speech will be followed by a musical performance of Pál Hermann’s work.

Corrie Hermann will tell MEPs about the story of her father, the Hungarian cellist and composer Pál Hermann, who was murdered by the Nazis in 1944. Pál Hermann’s original Gagliano cello will be used in the musical performance.

After a minute’s silence in the Chamber, the ceremony will conclude with a performance of Kaddish by Maurice Ravel.

You can follow the ceremony live.

Corrie and Pál Hermann

Born on 27 March 1902 in Budapest, Pál Hermann was a pupil of Béla Bartók and became one of the greatest cellists of his time. He moved to Berlin in the 1920s and gave concerts all over Europe with his Gagliano cello. In 1933, Hermann fled to Belgium and France. After the Nazis arrested him in Toulouse in 1944, he managed to throw a note from the train, asking for the Gagliano to be saved from the Nazis. The note was found and a friend of Hermann’s cycled 100 kilometres to rescue the instrument. He broke into Hermann’s house, replaced the cello with one of lesser value, and escaped with the Gagliano strapped to his back.

Hermann was murdered by the Nazis in a concentration camp in the Baltic in 1944. His cello reappeared 80 years later in the hands of a participant in Belgium’s Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition. Pál Hermann’s daughter Corrie (Cornelia) Hermann, now 92, will tell the story of her father and talk about his tragic fate and his work during the commemorative plenary.

 

More information: European Parliament.