A Canadian Composer's Tribute to Anne Frank
Twenty-five years ago, 16-year-old Anne Frank died in Auschwitz.
The diary she left behind is perhaps the most poignant memoir of the Second
World War.
For composer OSKAR MORAWETZ, Anne's diary had particular
significance. Born in Czechoslovakia, he had escaped to Canada from Italy just
before Mussolini joined the war; many of his friends, however, were not so
fortunate and perished - like Anne - in German concentration camps.
"In fact, the diary was published 1956," says DR. MORAWETZ, "but
I didn't read it until 1966 - somehow, I felt that I would find it too difficult
to read because I knew so many people who never returned from the camps.
"In November last year, the CBC asked me to prepare some
material for a concert Lois Marshall would be giving with the Toronto Symphony
Orchestra - and the idea I had once had of preparing a work based on the Diary
came back to me."
DR. MORAWETZ read and re-read the Diary, as well as other works
which related to the events the 16-year-old had outlined with such clarity. In
particular, he was struck by one passage, in which Anne remembered a school
friend, Lies Goosens, who had been transported to a concentration camp while
Anne and her family had been hidden by courageous Dutch friends.
"After Christmas, I started in a sketch of the work," DR.
MORAWETZ recalls. "And then I realised that I would have to obtain permission,
to use extracts from the Diary. I wrote a very unbusiness-like letters to the
publishers, Doubleday, in New York, telling them how the book had affected me,
and how it had become part of my life.
"They wrote back and said that they couldn't give me permission,
but had passed my letter on to Anne's father, Mr. Otto Frank, who now lived in
Switzerland."
Mr. Frank gave permission willingly. In a letter to DR.
MORAWETZ, he wrote: "You are the first one who has been struck by the feelings
Anne expresses about her friend Lies and the suffering of so many other Jews."
He passed on news, too - that Lies Goosens, in fact, suvived and now lives in
Jerusalem with her husband and three children.
Mr. Frank also mentioned that one of his former business
partners, who had sheltered the family during the war, now lived in Toronto. DR.
MORAWETZ met "Mr. Kraler" - whose real name is Victor Kugler - and the meeting
gave him additional insight into Anne's character and the period in which the
Frank family remained in hiding in Holland.
The final work is a 19-minute composition, in which a plaintive
descending motif emerges in a variety of moods and colours, suggesting Anne's
fears for her friend, and, in the final section, all people in need.
The premiere of the work, in May, was a triumph not only for
MORAWETZ, but for Miss Marshall and for conductor Lawrence Leonard. For Mr.
Kugler, who attended the concert in Toronto's MacMillan Theatre, it was a moving
evening. Early in September CBC AM and FM networks broadcast the work.
Mr. Frank, although invited, was unable to attend. However, he
cabled roses to Miss Marshall, and sent a special message to DR. MORAWETZ: "On
the occasion of the premiere of your composition From the Diary of Anne Frank
I am sending you herewith a small silver dish. It is one of the few possessions,
which have been spared from our former household. I received it as a wedding
present in 1925 and I thought you would enjoy having it. With warmest regards -
Otto Frank."
"It was the most moving gift imaginable," says DR. MORAWETZ
today. "When I think of how little must remain of his earlier life, I am
incredibly grateful for his generosity."
He has forwarded a complete score of the work, and a CBC tape of
the premiere, to Mr. Frank in Switzerland.
"Anne Frank is perhaps the best-known figure of the war years,"
believes DR. MORAWETZ. "Young people to whom Hitler is only a name like Ceasar
or Napoleon know of her story and of her gentle heroism. Anne is a legend, and
it is an honour to compose music in her memory."
