The women's orchestra of Auschwitz-Birkenau consisted of about 50 musicians, mostly Jewish prisoners, who were forced to play every morning at 5:30 AM — in freezing rain, in snow — while the prisoners they knew were marched past them toward the gas chambers.
Their conductor, Alma Rose, niece of Gustav Mahler, demanded precision because she knew that if their performance displeased the SS, they would all be sent to the crematorium the next morning. When Rose died in 1944, the musicians were told they would die too.
A 19-year-old Russian violinist named Sonia took the baton. She had never conducted. She had only watched Alma. She conducted with a piece of wire and a broken bow, and they played.
Only 15 of the 50 survived. When finally asked, Sonia said: We played because it kept us alive. But we also played because if we stopped, the only sound in Birkenau would be the sound of people weeping. We could not bear to let them weep alone.